In pouring rain, as our group drove north on Highway 101 by Hood Canal, the sky suddenly became a little brighter, and hurrah, by the time we arrived at the TH, the rain was now mist. There were still small patches of snow on the trail to Lower Lena Lake as a welcome sun was beginning to peep through the clouds. We were happy to have dressed in layers & enjoyed first mini lunch on the huge rock, while speculating as to the source of the interesting ‘crop circle’ patterns on the frozen lake. (see photo) We continued up the trail towards Upper Lena, the snow accumulation increased considerably and the trail flagging was very helpful. We began to encounter serious numbers of blow downs and at about 2700 feet and blow down number 15 to climb over, under or around, (30 RT !!) we decided to turn back. We returned to lower lake for second mini lunch to find the wind had picked up and most lake ice crop circles now melted. The only other hiker we saw was a photographer returning from Valley of Silent Men. The temperature began to drop, back on went the layers as we headed down the trail to our cars after an interesting and very fun day in the Olympics. Stats; Map GT 168 The Brothers; about 8.5 miles RT, 2,000 ft gain

I went to Lower Lena Lake and turned around at Lunch rock There was snow on most of the trail but not enough for snowshoeing. The snow was melting fast as we were hiking out and the trees kept dropping snowballs on us. The lake is mostly ice covered and there are interesting patterns in the ice. All the blow downs are gone. Thank you Mount Rose Trail crew!

The trail has been cleared of blow down from the trail head to the campground at the Lake.

Lena Lake #810,Putvin #813 The Olympics | Link to this report The worst of the blow downs We set out to hike up to lower lena lake on this cold and wet day. Getting to the trail head was a bit of a challenge. We counted about 30 blow downs on the Hamma Hamma road. Each blow down was cleared only enough to open up one lane of the road. Driving to the trail head involved constantly changing lanes to drive around each blow down. I had to run over some rather large piles of branches and it was a bit dicey to run over such things in my little ground hugging station wagon, but I can say that the road is passable in a passenger car. There is some patchy snow near the trail head. Access to Putvin trail is blocked by downed trees, basically only the Hamma Hamma road is clear, all the side roads going off it are blocked by downed trees. There was a sign near the Lake that said the brothers trail is closed due to a forest fire. The Lower Lena Lake trail is in pretty good shape considering all the recent wind and rain. We counted 21 blow downs between the trail head and lunch rock. Most of the blow downs were small enough to step over. We had to crawl under two of them and walk around some of them. There is a large multiple tree blow down about 1/2 mile before the lake that obliterates 30 feet of the trail. Closer to the trail head a tree has fallen onto and broken a wooden hand rail. We encountered patches of melting out snow on the trail 1/4 of a mile from the lake. The lake does not have any ice on it but there is some snow on the surrounding hillsides.

I set out this morning with the intention of hike up to Lower Lena Lake and then snowshoeing into the Valley of The Silent Men on the Brothers trail. Things did not go as planned today. There was too much snow for me to drive my car to the trail head. I only made it 1 mile from 101 before I turned around. My car was starting to slide and I had 6-7 more miles of road before the trailhead. Since the road gains elevation all the way to the trail head I knew the snow would be much worse near the trail head.