Lena Lake — Friday, Jun. 2, 2006

Olympic Peninsula > Hood Canal

There were 22 cars at the trailhead (and 28 when we returned), which didn't suprise me on a Saturday. I'm sure the lake shore was packed with campers, but we were'nt concerned because our goal was to go as far as we could on the trail to Upper Lena Lake. The three miles to the junction was as smooth and easy as ever. Although I've been to Lena Lake dozens of times, I usually continue on the Brothers trail to enjoy the Valley of the Silent Men. For some reason, I had never taken the trail towards Upper Lena. This trail is also quite beautiful; it goes along through an amazing old-growth forest. There is, however, an enormous blow-down about 3/4 of a mile in. We were able to climb around and over, following some ribbons, but it had turned back a group of four hikers who had assumed the trail was closed. We passed the National Park Boundary at about a mile, and then continued another third of a mile or so until we reached the first snowfield, which just happened to be at a paticularly gorgeous spot just over the creek bank. It was a great spot for lunch and we climbed down a bit to get an even better view of the snow-capped peaks across the creek and the deep green valley. We started back after lunch since it was getting late and we suspected that there would be more and deeper snow fields ahead. We never planned to go as far as Upper Lena anyway. We then met a couple of women who had gone much further on the trail, in fact had climbed up to the ridge. They said the trail disappeared in the snow. A group of young men who passed us a bit later also had lost the trail. So I don't know if anyone has gone all the way yet this season. I hope to come back and try this again when the snow has melted. (And I hope that the forest service will have cleared the blowdown by then).