Jul 9, 2022
After meeting in March of 2022, Elena and I were almost immediately glued to each other on the weekends, enjoying mountains and trails. I had hiked up to Lena Lake on the Olympic peninsula once before, but due to it being a quick recovery hike after another adventure up to Mailbox Peak, I never got around to writing about it.
Once my new girlfriend Elena, aka "Lena," wanted to spend a night at her namesake lake, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to enjoy a night out. Due to the number of people who walk this trail and the process involved in getting to the trailhead from the Seattle area, we drove out on a Friday night to allow an early start up the trail on Saturday. Even arriving late on Friday, the trailhead was overflowing. If you decide to give the lake a try, get there as early as possible. The camping fills fast on a summer weekend.
With the short trail, we overpacked, carrying all kinds of accouterments like an entire bottle of wine and some fancy food to eat by the fire.
From the start of the trailhead to Lower Lena Lake, the trail is tailor-made for families to have a day out. It is 2-3 people wide in most places, has sturdy bridges across all the creeks, and is maintained regularly. The ease of access made it an enjoyable walk up to the lake that only took us around 2 hours of slow moving.
The shoreline was well-stocked with campers when the trail reached Lower Lena Lake. Tents littered the woods, and plenty of hammocks filled the remaining space. To find a space to camp, we had to walk around the lake to where the trail crosses Lena Creek. On the other side of the creek along the shoreline, there were a couple of small sites where we could set up our tent.
Before settling in for the rest of the day, we hiked up to Upper Lena Lake. Part of the reason the lower lake gets so full is that around a half mile in any direction from the lake is the boundary of Olympic National Park. Because of this, if you want to camp away from the lower lake, you will need to obtain a camping permit from the forest service. However, the hike to the upper lake also involves around 3000ft (1000m) of elevation gain. If you want to see it, access is much easier as a day hike from the lower lake.
Not only was the hike up to Upper Lena Lake steep, but it was also starkly less maintained than the trail up to the lower lake. The trail resembles some climber's trails in other parts of the state, with root-climbing waterfall crossings and even some minor navigation.
The most exciting part of the ascent was near the upper lake, where a creek was unbridged. To get past the creek crossing, a rope is hung over the creek, which requires removing shoes and using the rope as a walking guide to cross the stream carefully. The water here was freezing and a little over knee height. The current was moderate, though, which made the crossing easy for the average adult. However, if there were significant snowmelt anytime in the few days before attempting to access the upper lake, I would avoid trying to make the crossing.
Upper Lena Lake was still covered in snow, making enjoying the view difficult. Especially considering the frigid wind that was blowing across the lake. So, we snapped a few photos and returned to our camp for food and a fire.
After returning to camp, I attempted to get some water from Lena Creek near our camp. The shoreline appeared stable, so I inched my way down and managed to get about 1/2 of a bottle full before the silty mud I was standing on slid out from underneath me. I flailed wildly, trying to stay on my feet, and slid up to about waist height into the water. Since fires were still being allowed for the year, I was able to change into my thermals and attempt to dry my pants using a makeshift clothesline we built from sticks.
Shortly after hanging up my clothes to dry, they fell into the fire when the clothesline collapsed. By the time I managed to pull them out, several holes were burned into the knees of my pants, and they were covered with ash. So, to clean them off again, I had to rinse them in the creek to clean them off and lay them out once last time to dry and get them dried out.
To soothe my sorrows, we pulled out the bottle of wine we had brought to imbibe a little bit. Before leaving, Elena had asked me to "bring a knife," and as she was getting the bottle out, she asked me to grab the knife I had brought. For some reason, I had not connected the dots when she asked me to "bring a knife," I confidently handed her a steak knife I had brought from home. Turns out steak knives don't work as a corkscrew.
We could not locate one despite invading other camps to find a corkscrew. So we had some nearby hikers shove the cork into the bottle.
We could not locate one despite invading other camps to find a corkscrew. So we had some nearby hikers shove the cork into the bottle.
The next time I saw Elena, she handed me a blue Swiss army knife to carry with me in the future. Almost two years later, we still joke about remembering "a knife."
Jul 10, 2022
Day two was an easy walk back out to the car park and a long drive back to Seattle. The ferries were jammed with traffic and the wait time was 3-4 hours. So, we ended up driving all the way around since it was going to takee the same amount of time.
My pants never dried out, so I walked out in the swim trunks I had brought to swim in the lake.
05:57 | 
20:21
TEMP: 39 ℉
WIND: 1 mph
RAIN: 0 mm
SNOW: 0 mm
