It was a beautiful day at Lena Lake! The road to this trail is in great condition. It's paved all the way to the trailhead. There are a few small dips that come out of nowhere so be on the lookout for those! 

This trail is easy to navigate. Most of the elevation is at the very beginning. The trail is like a creek in some places, so I foresee some work needing to be done here in the future. Future work party! 

The lake is gorgeous with a very nice view of the Olympics. I would have gone in, however the lake was filled with pollen. We stayed for about an hour. My 11 year old really enjoyed pushing logs in the water. 

This is one of my favorites! We plan to backpack here before the weather gets too warm. Lovely!

The road to the trailhead is snow-free, and the trail is basically snow-free too (just a few light patches of snow starting around 2.5 miles in that don't require microspikes). The bathrooms at the trailhead are still locked for the winter, so plan accordingly. There's also no garbage can at the trailhead; please pack out your trash.

It was a beautiful sunny day today. The forest looked especially green and magical. I started my hike around 8:45am and saw no one else on the way up to the lake; I saw about 10 other groups on my descent. There's a decent amount of water running on the trail in various spots, so waterproof shoes are helpful. My GPS recorded this hike as 6.2 miles (I stopped at Lunch Rock and didn't continue farther around the lake).  

If you bring a dog, PLEASE pack out your poop bags or leave your dog at home. There are no garbage cans at the trailhead and the outhouses are closed for the winter season. Unfortunately, people have been leaving their poop bags around/inside the permit envelope box/station, and it's disgusting.

Alright, just had to get that off my chest before diving into the rest of my report. We arrived at the trailhead at 11:30am and there were only two other cars in the parking lot. The road has snow on it, but tires have carved grooves that reach the pavement all the way up until you get to the parking area (then it gets messy). Even though the asphalt is visible, there is still an icy ridge of snow down the center of the road that is about nine inches high, so I recommend higher-clearance vehicles only. We drove a Subaru Crosstrek and had minimal problems. There was a rear-wheel-drive pickup truck when we returned after our hike that we had to save because they were stuck in the parking lot. 

The trail overall is in great condition, all snow considering. We used gaiters and microspikes 80% of the time. Though gaiters weren't totally necessary, they were nice to have for comfort. The trail is quite wet, but the rocks make it so it's not muddy. There were only two small trees over the trail, nothing to worry about. The snow was more slushy than ice, but microspikes made the trip a lot safer and enjoyable. 

We stopped to have lunch at the big overlook rock at Lena Lake. I found some trash others had left behind and packed it out. Please Leave No Trace. We decided to not go all the way down to the lake, so I can't speak to that section of trail.

We got back to the trailhead around 3:30pm (6.2 miles according to Gaia) and the drive back was easy.

My sister and I went on our first snow backpacking trip! After passing 3 cars that decided to turn around before the trailhead, we opted to park 1.5 miles from trailhead. In hindsight, my car could have made it, but better safe than sorry. The road was covered in snow and was a slushy mess. Definitely recommend 4WD vehicle with high clearance.

The trail was almost completely covered in snow, minus a few spots where the streams had melted it away. We used our micro spikes for traction and had our waterproof hiking boots which worked great - no need for snowshoes at this time. Waterproof shoes and micro spikes are a must though.

Our hike in was rainy, but we had a few little peek a boos of the sun. The trail is very pretty right now with all of the snow! There was one log down that we had to climb over about 1 mile into the trail but it was not hard to get over it. Only passed 7 people and one dog on our way in.

There is about 1 ft of snow by the lake and the lake is frozen - very beautiful!

Made camp right by the lake and enjoyed the evening making dinner and hanging out. We were able to filter water from a stream that was only a few minute walk from our camp spot. It rained until about 3 am. Enjoyed a leisure morning drinking hot coffee in our tent before packing up. We lucked out and the rain held off while we packed, and our entire hike back. We passed 5 people on our way down.

A nice family was leaving as we got to the parking lot and offered us a ride back to our car. They saved us a 1.5 mile walk on the slushy road, so a huge thank you to them!

Overall, we had a an awesome time for our first snow backpacking trip!

Beautiful day for a hike up to Lena Lake. The trail is completely snow-free. The road had some heavy frost in patches in the morning but my minivan (no AWD) was just fine. The trees at the trailhead were also beautifully covered in frost - they looked like they had been flocked. The lake was totally frozen too. A great winter day hike.