Went Friday night, camped about 1 mile up the Valley of the Silent Men. Perfect cramponing all the way to the top of the Brothers Saturday morning. Snow all the way except for a 20' patch of very loose rock near the top. Passed about 30 people heading to base camp on Saturday, so I would guess there is now a kicked staircase to the top. Still a lot of snow at the base camp, much better to camp before the snow in the valley. Crossing of stream is about 100 yards up stream as per previous post. Once at the camp, head right up the hill for the climbers trail, the boot prints stay along the river and brush. Bring crampons and get off the hill early, it's gets pretty mushy in the sun. Wear helmets. If the party above you is like us, then you will have a whole pile of rocks come down the upper chute on you. It was the perfect climb! I may never need to climb again....not.

The insanely popular Lena Lake trail is in great shape to the lake. The biggest problem is trail damage caused by people shortcutting the switchbacks, which are the most gently graded I have ever seen. To stop the shortcutting, The Forest Service has tried everything from putting up nagging signs to installing fencing. From what I have seen, the only solutions may be to lay a few landmines. Lena Lake and adjacent campsites are free of snow. The trail around the lake has a few easy-to-cross blowdowns. I went a short distance on the trail leading to The Brothers Base Camp in the Valley of Silent Men. The old-growth forest there is magnificent. Turned back at a major blowdown, with multiple large trees down on the trail.

The three of us left the trail head Friday morning and headed to base camp. The trail to lower lena is in good shape. most of the blow downs have been removed. I can't say the same for the brothers trail though. There are a few nasty blowdowns and a washout that isn't to hard to get around. Besides that, the six miles to base camp was uneventfull. Once you get to base camp you need to cross the creek. This was not easy due to the high water level. You'll need to go about 100 yards up creek and look for a couple of logs to cross over on. We started the climb at around 8 a.m. on Saturday. It was surprisinly easy to find the route through the trees and into the first shute. So far the weather was dry, but the snow conditions were very sloppy. At about 5000' it started to rain. We pushed on to 5500' and the rain got worse, along with the snow. We saw a small avalanche moving slowly down the shute so we decided to play it safe and call it quits. We got down to base camp, packed up, and headed down. Saw a couple of other climbers headed up and warned them about the conditions. Hope they have a safe trip. We'll give it another shot later this spring before all the snow melts. There is still alot of snow up there. About 6' at base camp.

We backpacked to Lena Lake on Friday evening with a plan to take some side trips on Saturday. There were 6 cars at the trailhead on Friday evening. We managed the easy hike up in about 90 minutes and had the tent set up and a fire going just before sunset. On Saturday morning -- after chasing away a huge crow from some improperly stored food -- we caffeined up and set out for Upper Lena Lake. There's a MASSIVE tree across the trail about a mile in. Somehow it managed to fall along the trail instead of across, so it's not just a matter of up-and-over, but figuring out the safest place to dismount and planning a way to get back over on the way out. After negotiating that, the snow was fairly deep beginning at the park boundary. And then the rain started. The prospect of another 2 miles and 1500 feet of gain in those conditions convinced us to turn back. On the way down, we took a left at the fork with the primitive trail, which has some really cool waterfalls as Lena Creek rushes down to the lake. We crossed the log bridge at the North end and explored some of the campsites. (The lakeshore ones are definitely nicer.) We then headed up The Brothers trail. More blowdowns, but nothing too major, and more impressive waterfalls. And the rain kept coming. After the second bridge crossing, the snow was knee deep when we decided to turn back. (I think we have iclimb and his party to thank for the footprints to follow -- we probably wouldn't have gotten as far as we did.) By the time we got back to camp, cold and soaked to the bone, we waited as long as we could before breaking camp for higher ground. The rain finally let up and we got a good night's sleep. Very light traffic on the way back to the car Sunday morning.

Lovely day hike, especially for families and doggies. Slushy snow patches in places and a few spots where water crosses the trail. Crawl over or under a couple downed trees to get to Lower Lena Lake. Perfectly paved road up to the trailhead might tempt you to speed, but remember the speedlimit is 35. (In the old days it wasn't POSSIBLE to speed on bumpy forest roads, so Forest law enforcers didn't have to remind you to go slower, as one did today.) The Ranger Station/Visitor Center at Hoodsport IS open after 9 a.m. and it was very helpful to buy our topo maps there this morning. (There was a comment on a March 2006 WTA report that this station wasn't open anymore...) From the snow on the turnoff to Upper Lena Lake trail it didn't look like too many folks had headed that way. Saw trillium, vanilla leaf, avalance lillies, and even a calypso orchid. A chorus of frogs near the trailhead launched our nice mossy hike.