Lena Lake — Friday, Jun. 30, 2006

Olympic Peninsula > Hood Canal

With the intention to climb South Brother in 2 days, the plan suddenly switched to a 1 day attempt. Drove down Friday night, camped near the trailhead, and started up the well maintained Lena Lake Trail at 0730 Sat AM. Refilled our water bottles at the Lake and headed up the Creek trail. About 3/4 of this trail is well-marked but there are quite a few nasty blowdowns and trail obliterations (especially in the dark on the way down). I imagine this trail would be difficult in places with a full backpack. After leaving the campsite we started up the bootpath for the snowfields. A steep and rough scramble lead us to the hourglass. There is still enough snow to avoid scrambling over the rock, scree, and talus although there are a few holes showing. It's hard to believe that it's only 1 mile from the campsite to the summit....I beg to differ with the quidebook. It took 4 hours to the summit from camp. Stay ""right"" to locate the true summit...there are several gullies to choose. We were within 10 feet from a mountain goat and followed it's tracks though much of the snow. The views (along with the snow ascent) were breathtaking all the way up. We reached the summit at 5 and started down after taking some pictures. The snow was too steep to glissade safely in places......very steep....so we plunge-stepped down trying to avoid the rock. We made it back to the well marked trail by 9:30 and out by headlamp at midnight. We were impressed with our accomplishment and would truly recommend this as a 2 day journey.