We headed out to the Olympic Peninsula to go hiking today. We decided to do Lena Lake and continue on through the Valley of the Silent Men to the Brothers camp. This trail is up FS Rd #25 on the north side of the Hamma Hamma River on the east side of the Olympic Peninsula. The hike up to Lena Lake is 3.0 miles with 1,150 ft of elevation gain. Then a 0.6 mile hike to the Brothers Trail at the far end of Lena Lake. The Brothers Trail through the Valley of Silent Men is 3 miles to the Brothers Camp with another 1,200 ft of gain. Our overall hike was 14+ miles round trip with about 2,400 ft of elevation gain.
The Lena Lake trail is nice and wide, a beautiful hike up through the forest with many shades of green. We hiked pass a couple of large dry gullies with large boulders.
We took a short break at Lunch Rock on Lena Lake to enjoy the view. Panorama View:
The we took the trail around Lena Lake toward the Lena Lake campground and the Brothers Trail.
There are also two trails that head up to Upper Lena Lake in the Olympic National Park.
There is a nice log bridge crossing Lena Creek
View looking south down Lena Creek toward Lena Lake, hidden in the trees, from the bridge.
View of Lena Lake from the north
Signage directing us to the Brothers Trail.
The Brothers Trail, also known as the Valley of the Silent Men, follows the East Fork of Lena Creek, crossing it many times. I was amazed for how long the creek ran underground and it did so a couple of times along the way.
There are several log bridges crossing the East Fork of Lena Creek.
From one of the bridges, on the east side, you can peer up creek between the boulders and see a "hidden" waterfall.
These fungi were as large as a huge platter.
The last log bridge was washed up on the far side of the creek. We went up creek a ways to cross over to the other side.
The Brothers trail is rough, parts of the trail are eroded, washed away, covered with downed trees, etc. The trail is doable, but in very different shape than the trail to Lena Lake.
View from where the East Fork reappears above ground, taken near the Brothers Camp.
Looking across the creek toward Brothers Camp. There seemed to be a lot of forest around the camp, so we continued up a boot track to get a view of the Brothers.
We took another break at Lunch Rock on Lena Lake on the way back down.
We saw some rhododendrons in bloom while hiking down the trail.
Some of the wildflowers we saw along the trail:
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