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| What's that sound in the woods? |
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| 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!
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| Lena mud puddle |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Hiking in the burned area |
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| 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.
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| Where I turned around, you can see the other climbers on the rocks |
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| 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.
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| Headwall |
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| sweater cairn |
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| This ravine is the route |
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| 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.
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| Moss at basecamp |
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| 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.
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| wear on my boot from the scree |
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| Slugs |
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| East Fork Lena Creek |
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| Mossy rocks |
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