Lena Lake — Monday, Mar. 31, 2008

Olympic Peninsula > Hood Canal

The famdambily and I went to the Hamma Hamma Cabin 3-31 through 4-2 and per suggestions here, we took a hike on the first to Lower Lena Lake. It was a nice hike, just long enough, with plenty of snow after the first third or so. Probably 18"" at the first bridge, with three - four feet at the lake. Lots of icy snow on trail, turning to plain snow up higher. Very pretty - lake still frozen mostly over, but ice gone to mush & not fit for walking on. Sunny day, but sadly camera was out of batteries ( all three!) and I haven't been able to find the charger so I can power it up and download the THREE pictures I was able to take. Will include later as conditions permit. WE heard some really impressive sounding landslides from the mountain acrosss the lake, but by the time the sound reached us, they were gone. Sounded like big rocks to me, couldn't see any freshly disturbed snow on the peaks. One amusing thing was on the hike out we (Me - 49, Sean 15, and Ian 12) ran into a group coming the other way. The vanguard was a 17ish boy carrying a Bud Lite, followed by three other youths, one carrying an 18 pack of Bud Lite. This was probably 1/2 mile from the trail head, before the snow really picked up. There was one kind of disheartened girl in the bunch who pointed out to her cohorts as they passed us ""See, THEY have hiking boots!"" I suspect that she felt a walk to the lake equipped only with t-shirts, tennis shoes, blue jeans and some Bud Lite wasn't such a great or fun idea. This was about 4:30 PM, so I suppose they had time to make it back out OK, assuming they didn't fall off a cliff or break through the ice or something, but it was still funny. All in all, a nice walk. I've never hiked much on that side of the state, but hope to do more in the future as it is really pretty and a lot greener than where I hail from. Peace Daniel