The trail to lower Lena Lake is in great condition--snow-free, wide and smooth. It's one of the best early season hikes and the gorgeous weather on Saturday brought out hordes of hikers. The hike is about seven miles round trip with an elevation gain around 1000 feet. The entire route is beautiful, with many old-growth trees along the way. The water level on the lake seemed lower than it will be later in the season when the higher peaks melt off. There was still some snow alongside the lake on the southern end and it contributed to the beauty of the scene.

The trail to Lower Lena Lake was free of snow, with snow at the lake and continuous snow above. There was a well defined path in the snow up the east fork of Lena creek (Valley of the Silent Men) until the forks at elevation 3,100. There was no need to put on snowshoes until that point. The trail register indicates that the summit has been reached within the last month by a solo cimber.

If you are looking for just the basics, the trail is clear and in very good shape all the way to Lower Lena except for two trees down between the second bridge and the lake. The Hamma Hamma valley was socked in with fog, and the fog had apparently been freezing for some time. The road was very slick for the final 5 miles to the trailhead. The first 500 feet of the trail are rather awkward because the moisture from the fog has created a layer of ice on all of the rocks, roots and leaves in the trail. The fog layer was about 300 feet thick, and the air above was crisp, clear and incredibly warm. In the shade at the overlook rock at the lake, the temperature was 61 degrees. The lake is newly frozen with a layer of clear ice, it is very beautiful and conchoidally fractured. There are perhaps half a dozen snow patches the size of my head at or below lake level. My head is large, but not large enough to make this a significant problem. The lake is very high, which might make camping interesting as most of the prime campsites are underwater. Based on past experience with both trails, The Valley of the Silent Men and Upper Lena trails probably become snowbound at between 2500 and 3000 feet. Apparently the recent fire on The Brothers is an impedement to travel. As always, this is an excellent hike, especially for the relaxed hiker, the slothful hiker or the hiker with young children.

Trail to Lena Lake was in excellent condition -- snow-free and clear all the way. Reports on the trail to Upper Lena from other hikers, were, however, less favorable. Apparently there is a lot of snow up there, to the extent that it is even resulting in route-finding problems. Lena Lake is still quite high, with the bases of trees and parts of the trail around the lake covered by water. Our plan was to head up The Brothers trail to attempt a summit climb. The trail from Lena is pretty decent, some patchy snow starting soon after leaving the lake, but easy to follow the path. A few blow-downs to navigate around / over as well. This trail up to the Lena Forks campsites is beautiful, following the river all the way up. After the third bridged river crossing, you hit another half-dozen or so nastier blow-downs, which are tiring, but again, navigable. Upon reaching the ridge near the campsite area, we hit solid snow for the rest of the trip. A somewhat dicey section of some exposure above the river is made tough due to the steepness of the snow and a narrow path, but once past this, you are at the campsite area. However, due to snow and the height of the right fork of the river/creek, it is unpassable here, and most people pressed on ahead another 1/4 mile to a flatter open area at the base of a chute and camped there, as did we. Camping is only available on the snow, so bring the four-season tent or bivvy bags! There is a snow bridge across the creek in this area. After crossing the creek, you have to hike back down on the other side to where the ""left"" fork of the creek joins, and then head up through the snow and trees, staying just to the right of the creek on the way up. We had some difficulty finding this route initially, and lost a couple hours bushwhacking and even climbing up the gully from our campsite in hopes of being able to traverse over to the route, all to no avail. Once we finally found the trail, it followed the creek up through snow and brush, ultimately opening up to a big snow gully which we followed up to Lunch Rock. From there, more very steep snow to the summit block, and a rock scramble with some exposure up to the top. WOW! 360 degree veiws! All the major mountains of the Cascades were visible, from Baker, Shuksan, and Glacier Peak in the North to Rainier, St Helens, and Adams in the South. To the East, the whole of the Puget Sound basin -- we could even see the buildings of downtown Seattle through the haze once we spotted the white of the Kingdome. And to the West lay the bulk of the Olympic range. Truly wonderous views, some of the best ever I think. Climb up from Lena Forks (minus time spent ""lost"") was about 4.5 hours. 2 pm and time to head back down. Once past the really steep snowfields, excellent glissading. Back to camp and packed up by 5. Now the long slog out on tired legs. Got back to the car by 8:30, and drove home. Excellent weekend! Ice axes required, rope, and crampons recommended.

We had a late start and didn't reach the trailhead until noon. A ranger was busily writing tickets for people who didn't have trail passes--and he told me there were many of them. There were thirty cars parked when we arrived, but the ranger told us that this was ""light"" for a major holiday weekend. We met a group of trail-workers from the Northwest Youth Corps who were doing impressive--and hard--work on this trail. The trail is snow-free all the way to Lower Lena Lake. We hiked to the far side of the lake for our lunch. There's a new log bridge over the inlet stream leading towards the Brothers trail. I was glad to see it, as the old one was so hard to climb up to (if you're as short as I am!). The weather was glorious after so much rain and the lake was higher than I've ever seen it. It covered the bottom of numerous trees along the shore.