Another aside: while in Olympic National Park, which is not it turns out, the whole peninsula as I thought, there were signs everywhere telling me to vote against national park expansion and to vote for working families. Blah blah blah, apparently, so far as I could make out: the government wants to forcibly buy more land from people currently living in areas sort of inside the park. These homes were there first. Now, I found it odd passing through neighborhoods in a rainforest, but Olympic National Park is already pretty big. Many of the mountain trails require 25 mile approaches. That is not ideal because the legs are burned up by the time you start going up. And few people do it. Mostly, I only saw people within 1 mile of trailheads. So why exactly does the park need to be bigger? This is one park I say is plenty large enough, especially if 5 years after a flood, I still can't get to the Doswallips peaks because the road has not been repaired. Washington seems to do a pretty good job running their forests, and every forest I saw looked danged healthy, though there are some ugly clear cut spots on the hills. These are rotated, and my jokes and grievances with the logging trucks aside (I forgot to mention about Mt St Helens that while permits to climb the peak are strictly enforced and limited that 2 of every 3 vehicles I saw was a truck loaded with timber; and my bootprints are going to destroy the area?! Also the ranger I mentioned giving a talk said that elk hoof prints churn the soil and promote regrowth and they are hoping more elk move in. Yet there are signs all over to not stray from trails. Again...how are my boot prints doing so much harm? Wouldn't they churn the soil and promote regrowth too? To a point? As long as a million people don't visit per year, which they do not.)
Well, so Hamma Hamma. Got there on a Tuesday night, a good time to arrive as Lena Lake TH parking is supposed to get fierce and competitive and the area sees lots of campers. On-line info I had, which was scant as I don't research much, said I would walk a pretty much flat trail 3 miles with a bunch of obnoxious fatso families carrying coolers full of beer, then camp at a lake teeming with idiots who draw bears in with their improper food storing knowledge and that I would be unhappy, but hey, its better than carrying a heavy pack 7 miles to the foot of The Brothers. So I packed my huge blue rig, the bag that weighs 5 lb empty due to steel rods in it, the kind everyone carries which I've abandoned because it blows out knees and burns up legs and lungs, all so I could carry my tent. After all, it was only 3 miles. Then I hit the TH, gorging on fattening soups and peanut butter of course, and read the description and look at the route map and see a whole lot of switchbacks. Well, that trail is disgusting, heinous, and long and hard and hot. You go up 1900 feet, its all switchbacks, with no views, and then you actually descend to the lake, so you probably go up 2100 feet. Its not fun with a heavy pack. I sweat through my clothes and was pushing dusk. The lake is ugly so far as lakes go, or at least, was unimpressive. Camping was good, with toilet facilities, toilet paper (a first in Washington! Hurrah!), nice sites, grills and fire pits provided. I could not take the storing of food all that seriously when grills were provided though. Really? I should worry about bears? When grills, which absorb flesh over every barbecue for years and are never cleaned and send out very strong odors are right here. Please. If bears were frequent to the area, there would not be grills. But marmots were sneaking about my tent, so I was glad my food was creatively hidden under a log with moss thrown over it 50 feet away.
My attempt at The Brothers was an old-school one. I had a puny and insufficient map which told me little other than at the end of a 6 mile trail to the Northwestish were 2 large mountains named "The Brothers." I did not pull it out all day. I had read enough and viewed a few pics to have the following advice in mind: "when in doubt, go right", and "your options are steep snow, or steep rock, just grab a gully and go". My impression was this would be a climb at some point, you know, like up cliffs, and slabs, and so I wore my approach shoes, a low cut hiking shoe with sticky soles, ideal for leaping, springing, jogging, well really any move, but not for carrying a heavy pack 3 miles to a lake, and not for sinking into mud or scree. These were the wrong shoes. I will not go into a complete detailed description because less than 500 people per year make an effort at The Brothers, I expect, but I will provide generalities. There is a trail all the way to the summit (s), and to a saddle I wound up on. These various faint trails are not maintained, but neither really is the trail through the Valley of Silent Men, despite what the park claims. There are ribbons blazing the way through the valley, and you will need to climb over some large fallen trees, do some route finding, cross a creek probably once without a bridge, and go around some washed out sections of cliffy trail. Its easy to follow, if you follow faint trails for a living, like me, but if you are an occasional hiker, take your time and look for ribbons and cairns. There are ribbons blazing the trail all the way up The Brothers too. Some are orange, some silver, some pink, most red. They stand out if you know to keep looking for them, but there is room to get lost or stray between them. There are cairns where ribbons cannot be hung. Some tape has been put down where ribbons could not be hung; strips of red or orange as Xs on rocks. These will get moved about. The route is intuitive once you have done it, not before. Do not listen to anyone who says the route is intuitive the first time. I've climbed/hiked near 100 mountains and have never been so lost as on The Brothers, and if you heard about my experiences last year with a couple of 18 hour days and 4 mile creek bushwhacks, then you know that is saying something. There is no climbing involved, unless you are playing, or lost. There is scrambling, and steep hiking. You cannot pick out the summit(s) of The Brothers. There are a ton of jagged peaks and spires which from various angles look like the high point. Don't bother unless you know which one is really the true high point (again, that means prior experience in the area). In spring or early summer, you would follow ice channels and snow up for a long steep way in cleats with an axe. In August, its a gully run. You follow gullies up the whole way for quickish climbing and will have to leave them now and again to avoid melting and dangerous snow. Do not bring climbing shoes, or wear anything other than ankle-supporting clunky boots. Not doulbe plastic, but solid hiking boots. Something you don't mind getting dirty or scratched up. Also, wear pants. There are thorns, fire ants, hornets and that ilk, thick brush, fallen trees, avalanche zones, fire zones, jagged rocks, and more. Long sleeves are good too. Water is available the whole way, every 1/2 mile or so at least and almost up to the summit(s). A straw filter is ideal as a backup as some pools are too small to filter from, but if you have a straw type, as pictured below, you can slurp up a sip anytime you need to, in under a minute. In late summer there are some ice caves to cool off in. Use them. They are cool. And at the first one, you need to go left, through the burn zone. Do not try the mossy slabs and cliffs, and the trail traverses through the worst of the fire zone. The route is actually two gullies. Leave the first and connect to the second to the west. About 1/8 between, I think. This was where I got most lost and did the most wrong things trying to find a route, since I did not know there was A route, marked the whole way, and the only real plausible single way up, give or take some straying.Go to frontier-filter.com for the straw filter I describe and show, or find an Emergency Essentials store or type of store near you. I paid $6 for mine at one of Utah's many disaster preparedness stores. This model filters up to 6 gallons of water, and is ideal as a backup (1 oz!), or as a cartridge saver, which I am now using it as more and more. Basically, using any product ruins it, but with a water filter especially, the dirtier the water, the faster you need a new cartridge. So when I'm looking down at a mud hole now, I use the straw even if I could fit the filter in and pull out a liter. A new cartridge is more than a new straw Frontier Filter. This will stop working when shot, by jamming. So if you suck and nothing comes out, throw it away and buy a new one. Or replace it every 6 months of hiking or so rather than trying to keep track of how many swallows of water you've taken and how many gallons that adds up to.
I spent 14 hours round trip leaving from Lena Lake and returning there, with about 800 calories of food and drinking about 1/2 gallon of filtered water, which was not enough. The trail is hot, exposed, tedious, and torturous and it sucks until the very end. Again, if you are climbing, it should be for play. It won't get you anywhere near the top. I had to backtrack almost every cliff I did and some of those were hard. The rocks are often slippery, and when not, are crumbly. The character of every gully is different. The main gully is the one to follow, as it leads all the way. Stay close even when you have to get around the snow. As for when in doubt, go right: I'd provide this rule: When in doubt, go right, then try left, and then check the middle. Probably they are all bad options. If you are stupid, stubborn, or can't bear the thought of returning to your life as a mild-mannered, average-looking middle-class nobody, then keep forcing your way up, if not, turn back like most climbers do, and lie. Say you were on top but your camera jammed, or lie that you ever tried to do The Brothers. Also I would add that no one should try to solo The Brothers unless 2 or more of the following apply: 1) you are a psychopath, 2) you already drove all the way to the trailhead to meet a friend and your friend never showed, then you got a text saying your friend died and to honor your friend's spirit, you proceed alone no matter the risks, 3) you want to die, 4) you have a lingering grudge against your knees because your knees stole your best friend's girl and then broke her heart after impregnating her and refusing to pay the abortion so you want to destroy their cartilage as fast as possible so they can't ruin the lives of anymore sweet young maidens, 5) you are one of the greatest mountain climbers alive and want a challenge, 6) the thought of returning home after being wild and free for 16 days is repugnant because you like being dirty and are at home a mild-mannered, average-looking middle-class nobody who was supposed to be a big deal according to standardized tests and the opinions of every grade school teacher you ever have but enjoying life and climbing mountains and writing poems you don't let anyone see because "Van Gogh never sold a painting" sounds like failure to these people, whom you mostly avoid anyway, and didn't ever like much even, but still!
I will let you decide which of them applies to me. Did I make it to the top? Well I did, but my camera jammed...nah just kidding. Its shockingly worth it for these views and for having clouds brush and waft slowly through your outstretched fingertips:
But it was all worth it on top. Again, did not think that possible. I wish I had had more time up there. The descent went much much faster and was not so bad. I divided the whole way into little segments, which is the way to cope with bad situations. My friend, the last time I went out with someone, was very impressed. He was thinking: its getting dark and we have 8 miles to go, we're lost, the conditions are bad, there is no water on route, and we're both worn down and we will never make it. And I would say, well its not even a quarter mile to the end of this snowfield. And we made it, eventually, at midnight, after 18 hours. And we still talk. Sort of. So I divided the long painful slog into sections. Get to the bottom of these cliffs and then things aren't so bad. 1/4 of steep sliding scree to that second ice cave, then 1/2 mile to the first one. Cool off and get some water at those. Then back to the fire zone...and so on. I knew the way now. The only real adventure was a goat stalked me. This lady goat watched me starting slides with each step down the scree, and I thought she was thinking: "what a clutz! How much noise! I always get the worst neighbors!" Then in the ice cave, the whole world began to shake and I froze and thought: avalanche! Do I stay in here? Will it hold? And what do I see? That goat leaping out of the way after triggering it. So maybe she was thinking the whole time that I moved good for a three legged goat (I had my alpine axe and was stopping all my falls with it). Then she came to the mouth of the cave and stared at me, so I moved, she stepped in to cool off and get some shade, then followed me. This went on for a half hour and 1/4 mile of the gully. She got very close several times and even passed me once and all the while blinking at me, with flies taking her apart. I finally made some quick climbing moves that spooked her to go away, or convinced her I was not just a shy three-legged potential mate but a man-cub, or some other goat boogy beast. But it creeped me out. Okay, you're lonely, I get that, your biological clock is ticking, but come on. I had to keep close eye on her horns incase she went crazy and charged me, and I was glad once again to have that alpine axe there. A fine weapon when needed.
The campers were gone when I made the river, but the Valley of Silent Men now had late evening light and was gorgeous! A wholly changed environment, not sinister now, even when the creek went underground and the air became echoingly still. Most of my pictures did not come out as it was too late. There is one gorgeous waterfall in the area, and lots of mossy mounds and nursery logs (old trees now sprouting with grasses, moss, flowers, and new trees as they compost), which can be had in other parts of Olympic and Washington and Oregon, but I was really floored with hills of ivy and some of the spots I passed through. These are the few photos that came out decently. I was pushing dusk again when I hit Lake Lena and stayed up eating until about 11 pm. I knew my next day was just hiking out. I had planned to go 10 more miles round trip to do Mt Lena, which offers the best views of The Brothers and can be approached from the camp I already had, but my knees were done. I woke up having a dream I was being tortured actually and had to slowly straighten my legs. Then I rested until noon before packing up and heading down because my knees and feet needed it. Actually 10 days later I am still moving around like Bruce Wayne in the latest Batman movie, before he, you know, grows new cartilage and becomes Batman again with the cane forgotten, before his back gets broken and an Arab played by a white guy (one of 3,000 in the film) punches his back whole for him so he and his regrown (is that even possible?) cartilage can make the leap of faith and save Gotham on the very last day at the very last hour of 5 months after being saved by Catwoman at the very single instant when she could do so without killing both Bane and the other chick but before she was too late...not that I'm questioning that movie, not at all.
Seriously, last warning: The Brothers is not only not for anybody, but not for most. The Valley of Silent Men is not named that on maps, but is appropriate, because silent, and frequented only by rugged mountaineers, not men of many words...before the advent of blogging anyway. To visit the Valley, camp at Lena Lake and spend an afternoon there. The last mile of trail is the best section.
No comments:
Post a Comment