Lower Lena Lake after the Windstorm

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 avoid 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.

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 trailhead 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 took my oldest daughter with me because my husband needed to be alone to go Christmas shopping. I like hiking with my daughter but I really look forward to my time alone. I need to get out into the woods and be alone so I can clear my head and have my thoughts to myself.

  My husband insisted that he needed to go shopping today and that I was denying him the chance to go shopping by not taking her. So I took her and we had a good time hiking together. She is a great little hiker, she had no trouble completing the 6 miles round trip with 1,250 elevation gain and she has not been hiking since last summer. Today's hike scores a 15 on the hike difficulty calculator. This was a cold and wet hike and we were both running a fever so it seemed even colder then it was.

On the way home we got a rare and special treat, we saw Sea Lions swimming in the Hamma Hamma river. There were several lions and they were surprisingly loud. We no longer have to got to the Oregon Sea Lion Caves to see lions! We watched the lions until we got too cold. We did not really warm up after our hike until we got home. My car's heater does not work the way it should.

When we got home we found that my husband had not done any shopping. He spent the day laying on the couch sick while my 2 year old destroyed the house. She flooded the bathroom destroying everything under the sink and smeared poop all over her room. I have a big mess to clean up now and I'm tired from being ill and from hiking and I have to throw a birthday party in my house tomorrow..... sigh...

Happy Winter Solstice!