Lena Lake and the Valley of the Silent Men Spring Hike

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.

At 1.9 miles we crossed a large wooden bridge.

We took a short break at Lunch Rock on Lena Lake to enjoy the view. Panorama View:

A ground squirrel kept us company.















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 of Lena Creek to the north from the bridge

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.

Looking up at the Brothers from the base.

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:

Lena Lake & Valley of Silent Men Winter Hike Washington

 We were looking for a hike in the eastern Olympic Mountains today, we chose the Lena Lake Trail (a 6 mile round trip) and then to continue along the Valley of the Silent Men (the Brothers Trail) toward the Brothers Base Camp (for a 13.4 mile round trip). We didn't make it all the way to the Brothers Base Camp, as we had a late start and didn't reach it by our turn around time. We hiked about 9 -10 miles with about 2500 ft elevation gain. The trailhead is 8 miles up the Hamma Hamma road off of Hwy 101. The trail begins at 650 ft, and quickly starts climbing up a series of switch backs.

The trail climbs about 1000 ft in 1.9 miles to reach the 1st bridge which crosses over an old dry creek bed, Lena Creek travels underground here.

 The second bridge is 0.7 miles further up the trail with only 200 ft of elevation gain. Here you can watch a creek tumble down the hillside.

Another 100 ft of elevation gain over 0.4 miles (3 miles from the trailhead), you reach a large rocky ledge overlooking the southern end of Lena Lake 100 ft below.

 After enjoying the view, we continued on to the north end of Lena Lake and crossed Lena Creek. It's worth stopping half way across the log bridge to enjoy the views:

To the north, Lena Creek comes tumbling down over the rocks, and to the south, watch Lena Creek as it enters Lena Lake.

The trail to the Brothers begins 3.6 miles from the Lena Lake trailhead, at the northeast end of Lena Lake. This trail travels through the forest, crossing the East Fork of Lena Creek 5 times as it travels 3 miles and climbs 1400 ft to the Brothers Base Camp. At one of the crossings, we could just make out a small waterfall behind some boulders.

 There were many downed trees along the trail this winter, one fallen tree had taken off the hand rail at this log crossing. At a couple of places, the trail had been washed out and new routes had been made off trail. We did hike over snow in some places, but didn't need to use our snowshoes.

We would have to look through the woods and around some fallen trees to see some of the beautiful cascades.
We were going to stop for lunch at one spot along the trail with beautiful mossy covered boulders, but the smell of fresh skunk discharge encouraged us to hike further up the trail away from the smell and a chance encounter with that skunk.
We needed to turn around before reaching the Brothers Base Camp, due to time restraints. I want to return one day, to finish this hike.

 On the way back down, the sun momentarily broke through the clouds to give us a clear look at Lena Lake from the north end of the Lake.