4,700 feet up the Brothers

What's that sound in the woods?

My tent in the moonlight

 

 

I drove my little one to school and then went home and got the last of my gear together.  I reached the Lena Lake trail head at 10:30 and started my hike.  There were only two other cars at the trailhead.  I borrowed my friend’s NWforest pass since the last time I parked here the forest service ranger,   for whatever reason, chose not to honor my interagency card and when the ticket came it came in the name of my spouse who also owns my vehicle.  My spouse could not afford to miss a day of work to fight the ticket, so I had to pay $55 just to hike up to Lena lake in the rain and snow on a Monday in the winter.  Yes, I’m still upset about that. Thanks a lot Ranger Summers!

Lena mud puddle

 



tea at Lena mud puddle

I reached the lake at 12:30 and I stopped at the far side of the Lena Lake to brew up a cup of tea before I started up the Brother’s trail.  Lena Lake was the lowest I have ever seen it.   I made it to the Brother’s base campground at about 5pm.   I was the only person to camp there that night.  I thought about camping further up the trail in a more open area, but my knee thought better of it.  I had a pretty easy time hiking in.  My pack weighed about 25 pounds because most of my gear is light or ultralight.  I cooked dinner at 6, but for some reason I could not eat all of it.  I normally have a good appetite when I am backpacking.

I was a little unhappy about being all alone in the campground.  At least it was not the first time I’ve been alone in a back country campground, so I was not as spooked as I could have been.  But this is a dark and gloomy campground and I was seven miles from my car and probably 3.5 miles from the next closest human being.   



My home for two nights

 

As soon as I went to bed it started.  This is a noisy forest!  Branches falling from trees, critters runing around my campsige and all kinds of unidentified noises.  As my head hit the pillow I heard an animal really close to me and without thinking I screamed.  Then it happened two more times just as I was drifting off to sleep and I screamed again.  Before I could scream a fourth time I told myself to wait for that noise again and find out what it was instead of automatically screaming.  It worked, a few minutes later the noise started again so I quietly reached for my headlamp and scanned my campsite for my tormentor,  it turned out to be a vole.   Voles don't eat people, in fact they are kind of cute.  That settled, I figured I would be able to sleep. 



I adore this little pond in base camp

 But noooo.. the sound of the river kept changing as if something was walking across it.  Was I imagining things?  Oh well, daylight would come soon and then it would be bright and sunny and cheerful and wait, isn’t the moon going to be pretty big tonight too?  So I fell asleep and then was startled awake by car headlights on my tent wall.  No silly.. it was just the moon.. ok time to go back to sleep. 

Then I was woken up by a big thing falling down from a tree and a creature making a thrashing noise.  SHIT.. what is with the campground?  Then something made a noise about 20 feet away from the crashing noise.  Eventually I figured out that the thing must be in the trees, therefore it was not a lion or a bear and it was not a threat.  But still, I startled awake every time it made a noise.  In the end I deduced it was a wood pecker.  It sounded just like a woodpecker.  Hmmm a nocturnal wood pecker??  Strange campground. 

Conks at base camp

 Oh well soon it would be light and then I could snatch an hour of sleep at least before it was time to hike.  The light came, but still I could not sleep because I kept having nightmares about rangers coming and dragging my tent away to write me parking tickets, while I was still in it and I was too paralyzed move or even wake up.  Sheesh.. So I gave up and got up at about 8 and it was still gloomy and not at all cheerful in that forest, but I could see the sun shining up on the mountain.  So off I went, without breakfast and totally exhausted from lack of sleep and my hike in the day before, to seek the sunlight and climb the mountain.

I started hiking up the trail at 8:30.  The trail starts in the forest and then soon breaks into an area that was burned or had a land slide or both.  There were ribbons everywhere so route finding was easy enough.  I kept having the nagging fear that I had not packed enough water.  Next the “trail” left the forest and headed straight up a steep and dry riverbed that was filled with basket ball sized rocks.  Yep that was the route, right up the dry river bed, it reminded me of my route up Lebar creek.

Hiking in the burned area

waterfall below tree line

 It took me 3 long hours to reach the top of the riverbed at 4,700 feet.  I was tired and was travelling slow.  From the top of the river bed I was not certain what to do other than go right.  But going right looked kind of scary.  Soon two strapping young men came up the mountain and chose the hardest possible route because they were rock climbers.  I tried to follow them until I found out they were seeking out the hardest routes just for fun.  I felt out of my element when comparing myself to them.  They said if they got too far ahead of me they would leave me some cairns.  But I felt I was going to hold them up. 

They climbed up on some rock that I could not begin to climb while I went up a scree slope.  The scree was scary for me, I almost fell twice and I knew there was supposed to be 2,000 feet of scree on this climb.  The summit was still 2,000 feet above me somewhere, but I could not yet see it.  Then I looked back and saw that there was going to be no view thanks to all of the haze from forest fires. 

Where I turned around, you can see the other climbers on the rocks

Lonely cairn lost in the Mountains

 

Next the route turned right and went right up a rock wall.  I knew I could climb the wall, but could I climb back down it could I down climb 2,000 feet of rock walls and scree?  I was tired and I decided this would be a good place to turn around, so I did.  Oh well, maybe next year.  Maybe I can come back and try this when I’m not so tired and I’m not suffering from a cold.

Headwall

sweater cairn

This ravine is the route

 


I felt relieved to be heading back down and I knew there would be people in the campground that night so I went ahead and camped in the same spot instead of going all the way back out to the car.   I knew that people were camping there because I ran into two men who were climbing up as I was coming down.  It seemed to me that they were off to a late start.  They had never climbed the Brothers before either and they were doing it as a day hike.  Later I learned that they turned around about half way up to due a route finding issues and time constraints.  They offered to take me up with them but I was too tired.

Sphagnum squarrosum  in the Valley of Silent Humans

Hericium next to Lower Lena Lake

Wild mushroom  near Lower Lena Lake

4 of these were on one log next to Lena Lake

The waterfall on the way to Lower Lena that I always drink from.  I've never seen it dry before

 

spaghetti with wild mushrooms

  For dinner I had wild mushrooms and spaghetti.  I chatted with my neighbors and showed them a nice wild mushroom and then I went to bed at about 8pm.  Almost immediately that damn vole came back and woke me up several times.  Then at about 4 am something ran across the river and up the bank causing all kinds of rocks to fall down.   I never saw what that something was.

But at least  I only screamed one time that night.  I screamed when that vole woke me up by getting to within inches of my head. It might have even been in my tent with me.  I zipped up the bug screen to keep the vole out of my tent.  Every time I woke up in the night my body hurt.  I was sore from hiking.  I tried to stretch a little but that hurt too.  At least I was warm enough. 

To keep warm I wore my ninja suite with a down coat, thick socks, a hat and a pair of gloves.  I normally sleep cold but with this new system I stayed toasty warm.   It was so nice to be warm at night.

I got up at about 6:45.  I thought the other campers who were heading up the Brothers at 6:30 might have woken me up.  They offered to take me with them the night before but I said I was too tired.  I walked down and saw that they had not yet left at 7am.  I  made a hot cup of tea and cooked my breakfast while slowly packing my gear away.  Breakfast was instant rice with milk, sugar and raspberry fruit leather disolved in it.

                                                            (Dinner and my campsite)

At 8:30 my neighbors headed up the trail and I wished them good luck.  Their goal was to climb up and then go all the way back to the trailhead and drive home to Bremerton.  They got off to a later start then they had planned.

Moss at basecamp

Moss at 4,700 feet

 

At about 9 I started hiking back to my car.  The forest was so beautiful in the Valley of Silent men.  I savored my hike out even though I was stiff and my good ankle was acting up.  I packed a second ankle brace, so I went ahead and put it on my good ankle and that helped a lot.  I made it back down to the lake at about 10:30 am.  There were noisy campers at Lena Lake and two people had campfires.  There is a total burn ban, but I guess they did not get the word.  I was a bit annoyed with folks who were sitting on the shore and howling, but that’s Lena Lake for you .  I stopped on lunch rock and drank some water and ate a candy bar.

The interminable descent  down the lower Lena Lake trail was interminable.  I hate those long drawn out switchbacks.  I kept looking at my GPS, I was losing elevation too slowly.  I figured I must be in bad shape to feel so bad at that elevation.  My GPS did not have a lock to show me where I was on the map.  I just knew that I was a lot higher up than I  felt like I was, or was I?  

Actually I was right where I thought I should be for the way I was feeling.  My barometer was off by about 500 feet.  I was soon alerted to this fact by the sound of car door slamming.  When I reached my car I was relieved to find that I did not have a ticket.  Sure I had a forest pass, but that’s no guarantee  of not getting a ticket at Lena Lake.  Since I did not get a ticket I figured it was safe for me to use the bathroom. (A court just ruled that they Forest Service cannot charge you to park if you are just hiking but can charge if you use the bathroom or the picnic table.) 

Lots of dayhikers passed me on the way down.  The trailhead was packed with cars up and down both sides of the road.  Lena must be a cash cow for the forest service!

It felt really good to take my boots off.  I did not know it, but I had developed a big blister on my left heel.  Luckily it did not break.  When I got home I found that the house was an absolute mess and my spouse was sleeping.  I assumed he was sick and I was right.  I let him sleep and about an hour after I got home he woke up and discovered I was home.  In that time I did a load of dishes, vacuumed, swept the floor and some other stuff.  I was tired, but I got it done. 

Now back home my ears are starting to hurt.  The air is really bad thanks to the forest fires.

I’m glad I did this trip even though I was sick .  It was good to get out and I must have looked really cool with my (unused) climbing helmet.  This was my first back packing trip in 5 years and I felt better and hiked better this  trip, in spite of being ill and being five years older.

Pictures later, I'm very tired and just wanted to get this written while it was still fresh in my head.

16 miles with 4,000 feet elevation gain

 13 miles with a fully loaded back pack 4 miles with a day pack.  I deleted all of the wander track points such as when I stopped and when I looked for mushrooms.  I actually hike a bit farther then the track log below says.

A note about my gear:  My backpack is an REI brand Morning star that I have modified to the max in order to cut its weight.  I cut the top and side pockets off.  I sewed on new side top pockets made of light weigh mesh and I added a back mesh pocket.  I cut all the extra straps off except the compression straps.  I tossed the sternum strap because this pack fits me so well that the sternum strap was not needed.  I added shock cord to the back to help hold things on.  I think this pack weights about 1.5 pounds at most.    I love this pack, it's light and it carries weight very well.  I need to sew up the back mesh panel, it has a hole in it.  I might just replace it as it is more narrow than I would like.

I made my cookstove,  is a made of the bottom of a V8 can and the bottom of a small cat food can.  It weights about two ounces and runs on denatured alcohol.  I use a titanium cookpot with a stand made of hardware cloth. (think rabbit cage wire). 

My shelter is a Shires Tarptent.  It sleeps three and weight about 1.5 pounds.  It's an awesome light weight shelter, but I've had some issues with it.  I think it was a beta model.  I've had to sew it up in a few places and I have a hell of a time getting it into its stuff sack.

My sleeping bag is made of down but it's a cheap Campor bag, not an expensive bag at all.  I think it's rated for 20 degrees.  It weighs about two pounds.  

I dehydrate all my  own backpacking food.  I can't afford that Mountain house crap and the one time I did eat it I wanted to throw up.  I dehydrate leftovers all year long and I make my own fruit leather when fruits are in season.

I don't bother with any kind of water filtration or treatment in the Olympics, it's just not needed.

wear on my boot from the scree

Slugs



East Fork Lena Creek

Mossy rocks

Brothers Camp from Lena Creek Camp

Valley of the Silent Humans


Waterfall in the Valley



gyromitra, conk, shoe



Bed at Brothers Camp
(Blurry due to rain and fog on lens)


A pond next to a rock that looks like it was cut in half by something




Old moss-covered rock slide. Did this slide happen during the subduction zone earthquake in the 1700's?



Trail is overgrown at my geocache site in the Valley




Cedar dotted cliffs in the fog


Brothers Climbing Camp from Lena Creek Camp


We camped at Lena Creek again this weekend. Lena Creek was not my first choice for camping but it was Father’s day weekend so I went without to much complaint. The road to the other nearby trails is still washed out; my only real choice was to go up the Lower Lena Lake trail again. . I hiked to Lower Lena Lake last week so this week I wanted to go further.
..
I walked from my campsite at Lena Creek and arrived at the trail head at 10am. It was raining so the trail was not quite as crowded as usual. I leap fogged with a group of girl scouts for half of the hike then they kindly let me pass them at Lunch Rock. It only took me 1 hour and fifteen minutes to make it to the rock. After leaving the rock the trail passes by shoreline campsites. Most of the campsites were filled and the folks up there seemed to be camped very comfortably. The camps up there looked more comfortable than our car campsite down below. I would have pitched a tarp over our table so we could sit outside at the table and stay dry. But our table was covered with dirt and mud thanks to the antics of my 5 year-old. There so there was no point in pitching a tarp over the muddy wet table.

I arrived at the Brother’s climbing camp at about 2:30. The rain never let up for the entire hike up but it really started falling when I got to the camp. By this point I was also pretty tired and I was getting clumsy and a little disoriented. I lost the trail so I headed back toward a tent I saw in the campground and found backpackers outside the tent. They had just finished climbing The Brothers and they reported that the route finding was hard and the way was covered with snow near the top. They also pointed me in the right direction. The trail turns left at the campground and follows a tributary up. I followed the trail about 1/10 of a mile past the campground just so I could see something new. I had hiked up to the campground in the past so I wanted to go just a bit further. But I did not go far because the trail started getting steep and I was getting tired.

I walked back down to the camp and ate my lunch and brewed my tea. Lunch was cambert cheese with crackers, PJ tips pyramids tea and an organic pop-tart. All these items came from a local discount store. Ever since this stored opened we have been eating like Queens and Kings. Right before I headed back down the backpackers headed back down the trail and a new set of backpackers arrived.

I walked back down to my car camp in the rain, taking a few breaks to ease the random aches and pains I was having and to take some pictures. I did not take any pictures on the hike up because my camera is not water proof and I had hoped the rain would stop by the time I headed down.

When I arrived back at the Lower Lena Lake trail head I found the ranger writing parking tickets and I could hear an awful howling noise coming from my campground. I almost yelled at the howling campers from the safe anonymity of the bushes but I decided not to.

It is a good thing that I did not yell as it was my own family that was doing the howling. As I approached my campsite I found my husband and daughter on their way up to meet me on the trail. My husband was a bit disappointed that I had arrived back at the campsite before they could reach the trail.

I finished my hike at 6:45 and I rested up for about an hour before heading back up the trail with my family. We only went to the second switchback before my husband was exhausted and called it quits.

I usually try to hike about a mile in the evening after I have done a long hike. It seems to make me less sore in the morning. This was a trick that I learned when I was a grade-school cross-country runner. I don’t know if the trick actually works but it seems to help. I’m not as sore as I expected to be this morning and I don’t think I have done this much mileage since last summer.

14.4 miles
2400 feet elevation gain
61 miles on my waterproof red shoes now.



Dirty litle hoobah that covered our table (and most everything else in camp) with mud



Lower Lena Lake raindrops



Why was this healthy tree at Lena Lake Camp murdered?



The meter maid left a nasty surprise for a hiker. Tthe Lena Lake Trailhead is the only trail head that I've ever seen rangers writing tickets. This car was one of many ticketed for not displaying a parking permit.




Tracklog



Elevation Profile

The Brothers Campground

Lena Lake from Lunch Rock




I woke up for the umpteenth time last night but this time was different. This time my neck did not hurt and it was actually morning. Not just any morning, it was hiking morning! My neck has been hurting since my field trip, I think its mostly stress. The pain reached its peak last night after I argued with my husband.

I arrived at the trail head at 9:00 am. I enjoyed looking at the Hood Canal on the way up. Most trails south of the Hama Hama have been closed until April 1st so I made the trip North to the Brothers trail. The Brothers are the most distinctive peak in the Olympics when viewed from Seattle. I used to look at them from the window of my downtown apartment, I did not know their names back then but I often wondered what it would be like to sit up on one of those peaks. Finally 10 years after I moved out of that apartment I got my chance to find out. I've been on the summit of Mount Buckhorn but not on the summit of the Brothers.

I saw an amazing sight at the trail head. I could not believe my eyes! There was no one parked at the Lena Lake trail head. I don't think I've ever witnessed that sight before. The days are getting short and I had just seven hours of daylight to work with so I gave myself 4 hours to hike up and 3 hours to hike down I decided that at 1:00 I would turn around no matter where I was.

The lower trail is not my favorite hike but the lake is pretty. I've never been very far up the Brother's trail so my goal today was to hike to where the brothers trail ends at base of the Brothers climbing route. I had to hustle a little bit to make it up there and back before dark.

I made it to the Brothers camp at 12:40, that gave me only 20 minutes to have lunch. I brewed up a tea and drank it there and cooked my lunch but carried it down to the lake before I ate it.

I was amazed to find a certain type of mushroom on the trail. This trail is so busy with hikers that I assumed that particular mushroom would not make my list. Well there it was. In fact someone had picked it and then left it. They must not of known what it was.

Other mushrooms I spotted today were chanterelles all past their prime and tons of yellow foot chanterelles but I did not have the time to pick them. I also found but did not pick shrimp russula, russula brevipes, pigs ears and witches butter.

My best find of the day was a large bears head fungus. It is starting to yellow but I think it will still be good.

I did not see anyone else on the trail until I got back down to lunch rock. I think the weather forcast kept hikers away this weekend.

I made it back down to my car at 4:00 on the dot, sunset was at 4:30 . I try to get off the trail 1/2 hour before sunset so I timed it just right. Today's
Stats: 13.2 miles and 2,400 feet elevation gain. I'm tired but I enjoyed my hike.

As an added bonus today my husband actually cleaned the house while I was gone. Normally he does not pick up after himself and I have a load of housework to do when I get home from hiking.








Bears Head Fungus


I did not go high enough to see the burn




A big grill for the back country.



Area Overview




One way profile




One way Track Log




The barometric pressure changed so the elevation log is not symmetrical