It is done; Robert and I have climbed the Brothers, completing the Traverse between the two from south to north. Robert had been talking about climbing the Brothers for as long as I've known him (since moving to Seattle). It's awesome to have it done. As the first big overnight trip of the year, I met Robert at his house in Ballard where we shoved all the gear into his l'il car. Part of the fun and annoyances, some would say, is that the Olympics are best accessed via ferry. I suppose that contributes to their "look but don't touch" reputation. However, since I never ride the ferries, I thought this was pretty fun. It was a beautiful sunny day and we ambled about the ferry checking out the views of Seattle and the slowly approaching Olympics. At one point we saw a gull drop a fish out of its mouth that was quickly scooped up in the talons of a bald eagle. The gull wasn't pleased and started harassing the eagle. The eagle didn't seem to care at all. In Bremerton, we picked up a little food and ate in the car as we headed towards the Lena Lake trailhead. I was delighted to see how high the snow level was. It appeared that we'd have a long hike before we'd have to start slogging through wet spring snow. At the trailhead were hoards of people, obviously this is a popular trail. I don't know, maybe twenty cars were parked along the road. My pack felt a little bigger than it needed to be. I likened it to it being an early season trip and I had to perhaps relearn some packing techniques. My weeklong trip on the Ptarmigan Traverse wasn't too much bigger than this one. Of course, we carried snowshoes (we didn't use them once) and that added a lot to the weight.
The trail to Lena Lake is very well-maintained. We saw lots of people on the trail. In fact, up to Lena Lake was the most people I believe I've encountered on any one trail in Washington to date. The trail gains elevation slowly and comfortably. Robert nearly stepped on a garter snake that skittered across the trail. There was one spot where you get a great look, albeit through the trees, at Mount Washington. Another long switchback was interesting because you cross the Lena Creek drainage. As you approach, you can hear Lena Creek below you, but crossing the drainage to the west side, you never step over water. Is Lena Creek partially underground? I reckon so. Suddenly we were at the lake which was alive with activity. There were several folks camped all around. We stopped and took our first rest at a nice bluff overlooking the lake. Robert had a snack but I did my usual shutterbug thing. Not having food here would cost me later.
We headed up into the "Valley of the Silent Men" which still featured a fantastic trail. This was the highlight of hike in. The silent men gazed down on us...underneath were Fangornesque features: moss covered boulders and fallen logs, small grottos filled by small waterfalls. It's a pretty enchanted place and I stopped frequently for photographic opportunities. About two miles up the valley, we started encountering snow. Robert had gotten decently in front of me. I was taking lots of pictures but more importantly was running low on energy. In the back of my mind, I thought to myself, "the season of trail slogging has begun!" So, I had a little snack while we put on gaiters and I perked back up almost instantaneously. A little searching around revealed the place to cross the creek and head up to the southern side of the Brothers - a branch of Lena Creek confluence from the west. The hike up this valley started in snow but thankfully there was a long section without snow. Eventually, the slopes opened up into a snow-covered meadow (actually, it's probably brush in summer) that featured a distinct large waterfall coming of the south walls of the Brothers. We pressed on, both slowly getting ready to call it a day and rest. We were at about 3500 feet. I thought there was no way that we'd make it nearly 2000 feet above today to camp at "Lunch Rocks". We persisted on through a dense section of timber, gaining lots of elevation here as there was very little snow. It was steep and loose with pine needles to be obnoxious enough to cause me to seek out snow. Blocked at a small cliff, I suggested we traverse left and get into the snow gully and head up. Robert was more optimistic and thought he could find campsites at the top of the cliff. We went our separate ways briefly. I sapling rappelled my way down into the gully and headed up, glad to see that the snow was reasonably firm. Robert and I met up about 100 feet above. No campsites. "OK, let's try that gravel
pile up there about 200 vertical feet." No campsites again. "Well, let's go look at that section of small trees there about 150 feet up." Well, that didn't look too comfortable. So finally, we decided to at least eat some dinner at these rocks next to a cataract. With some warm food in us we figured we'd have the energy to make it up to Lunch Rocks which were about 500 feet above us to our best judgment.
Again, I was feeling pretty tired before dinner and afterwards, I had the energy to go on a little more. We enjoyed a nip of rum as well from the bottle. A little more slogging up and the slopes started to open up with views of the Olympics to the southwest. As we arrived on top of the small ridge, we began seeking campsites. Each successive potential spot wasn't perfectly level. Everything, of course, was now covered in snow. Eventually, we gave up the search and opted to break out the shovel and dig two end-to-end spots for our bivy sacks. We dug and smoothed out our temporary homes as the sun faded and the lights of Pyuallup (we surmised) ignited. We were a little too far to the southwest to see the lights of Seattle. I had my short sleeping pad with me and was a little worried about getting too cold during the night so I opted to sleep on my jacket, pants, and backpack. Turned out it didn't help much; we both didn't sleep terribly well. I recall trying to scrunch up in to a tight position many times in a vain attempt to put as much of my body as possible on the sleeping pad (too many times I woke up with a chilled butt). The morning came suddenly though as Robert tormented me to get up. Obviously, it was good to get going soon and take advantage of hard crampon snow, but I still didn't want to move (can be lazy in the morning). After a bowl of oatmeal (I still don't like the stuff), we were off. Mixed gentle and steep slopes of 30-45 degrees with occasional rock patches led us high on the slopes of the mountain. Robert used his mystical no crampon technique for a long time but I felt crampons were necessary. Our idea was to find a notch in the ridge to climb down into the Great Basin, approach and climb the North Peak first, then traverse to the South Peak for an straightforward descent. However, we didn't move nearly east enough and ended up high on the ridge of the South Peak. OK, so we were going to traverse from South to North.
To get up on the ridge, we needed to climb a short vertical but solid pitch of rock (5.4). Robert opted to dry tool it. Not me though. I took off my crampons and headed up. The climbing was easy except that I had my giant camera *and* video camera in front of me. Well, a little tweaking and attention to super solid footholds got me to the top. We swung around to the north side of the peak and the traverse came into view. Wow! - it did not look easy at all, but most thrilling and alpine in character. I followed Robert to the summit.
We didn't waste any time. I tried scarfing down a nasty energy bar clone but could only get through about half of it. We flaked the rope and Robert led down. Once belayed down, we began simul-climbing. It turned out Robert was able to nicely protect the route with nuts in the solid basalt rock. The downclimbing was steep but not too hard at all. The snow was soft (and softening) enough to kick bucket steps in. I cleaned a second nut and headed down another 80 feet. Robert then called out: "Are you at the second nut?" Well, instead of climbing back up that far, I searched (I thought vainly for a while) until I found a small horn to put a sling around. It wasn't the biggest horn but it was solid. It turned out that Robert was downclimbing a steep scary 30 foot section that had difficulties further compounded by an icy sloping rock at the base (there wasn't much but air beyond that). He made it down and I nervously followed. For the most part we were directly on the ridge. I was belaying on the east side and the route soon led me over to the west side. As I peeped over the sharp knife ridge, my breath nearly stopped as I saw I had a short but super exposed traverse to the more difficult section. It was pretty scary getting onto the west side, but once there, my ice axe placement was so good that it was safe from a big pendulum fall. I popped back over the east side and began downclimbing the crux. The rock was quite unnerving because I thought I was faced with another potential big fall but Robert had protected it perfectly with a nice chockstone under the icy rock. He had used his ice axe to wedge in the rock and lower himself down. I could not find a good placement at all. So, I got up on my feet and used the rock arete and its nubbings to balance my way around and down. Whew! We met up at an exposed perch where I took a seat to belay Robert over the next section, the true knife edge.
Robert headed off to the west side (we were blocked by a vertical tower in front of us and air on the east side). Turns out the west side was quite passable, that was a relief. We began another simul-climb. The route led under a large roof, more of a cave. Another steep and longer traverse of mixed nature lay past the cave (see the labeled image) which led directly to the distinct knife edge section of the climb. The knife edge was a lot of fun, maybe 100 feet long and very exposed! We both crossed it with a nervous squat. Beyond the knife edge, we passed the large gendarme on the eastside to the final difficulty: steep downclimbing that led to easy 45 degree snow slopes of the North Peak.
Looking back as we climbed the gentler slopes of the North Peak, the traverse route looked quite impressive. Good to have it done! Again, we didn't stay on top very long. We headed down the east couloir which was soft and made for good down climbing, plunge stepping, and glissading. We set off numerous top layer avalanches (they weren't significant, just continuous) and then began the slog across the Great Basin to a very prominent notch in the ridge.
Again, I was losing power. This trip, more than any other, I was acutely aware of my need for food and how, almost instantaneously, I reaped the benefits of more energy. We grabbed a little bite to eat before heading up. At the top of the little col we began heading our way back east. At this point, Robert did set off a significant slab avalanche that thundered down and around a corner. Getting back to camp was pretty difficult and I think it would be much harder for someone to find this route in the opposite direction. We crossed steep snow, scrambled our way along cliffs, rappelled using branches down steep snow many times. Finally, back at camp, we wrung out our drenched socks (the dirt water poured forth freely) and packed up. I ate my lunch here, a peanut butter and honey sandwich that tasted like cardboard in my parched mouth. Water only helped nominally. Fortunately, glissades got us down into the valley very quickly although we were both nearly rubbed raw! The hike out was uneventful but pleasant enough. Near Lena Lake my backpack really started grinding into my shoulders. In anticipation of catching the 9:15pm ferry in Bremerton, we picked up the pace and zipped down. We made great time back to Bremerton where we arrived at 9pm with plenty of time to catch the ferry. Then, when were fourth in line to buy tickets, we were turned away. The next ferry was at 11:40 pm. So we made the drive around the Puget Sound and back to home. Awesome trip! I was exhausted for a couple of days after this one; it was a bit beyond my current fitness level! Thanks to Robert for the great suggestion, company, and courageous leading! More:
Statistics: 15 miles, 7500-8000 feet of elevation |
