[TR] The Brothers - Route 1 attempt 2/15/2009

[kc-climbs]

Trip: The Brothers - The Brothers standard route (route 1)

 

Date: 2/15/2009

 

Trip Report:

First TR - and it's more of a description of conditions. I've never been to the area, but I've wanted to try my luck at the brothers for awhile. From my understanding, late season climbs of the brothers can be a bugger due to overgrown brush. So, with the nice weather I went over the past weekend with my skis (being optimistic) to try to get some turns in and make things (possibly) easier. Above Lena lakes, it didn't look like there was much activity recently so I thought I'd post the conditions that I found.

 

Road to Lena lakes was snow covered, and impassible for my tiny golf 1 mile from TH. Thanks to Mike and jared from Port orchard for the ride to the TH. 'Great,' I thought, 'sufficient snow!' 100 feet into the trail skis went on my back. Trail was crystal clear to Lena Lakes. From Lena Lakes, trail is snow covered, but easily navigable (no skis). Camped at the fork in the stream (3000').

 

Sunday, we had to boot up to 3500' no problem, leading into more avy debris/fire debris. We wasted much energy navigating the downed trees. There wasn't enough snow cover to just walk/skin through, as I was hoping. (Did we get off track, or is this standard?). Hit continuous snow at ~4500' and went as far as the headwall at 5000'. We decided to turn around there because of the late start, weather coming in (started to snow), and fatigue from jumping around trees. I probably could have gotten a 750' run with my skis, but I didn't want to mess with the skins, etc.

 

In parts, there was only about 3-6 inches of snow on the mega crust. In other parts, there was 3-6 inches on slick bare ground. Route above looked good from what I could tell, but obviously didn't test first hand.

 

Got back to TH at dark, and I finally got to put on the skis for the first time just to tour back to the car through the slush.

 

I am sure there was some skiing to be had up top, but the ~8+ miles each way in AT boots wasn't worth it for me. At least I got to bring some of the Olympic National park back with me - attached to the skis.

[Drederek]

Yeah the snow conditions are unusual. It was very warm above the inversion (like 60+) a few weeks ago. Combined with lots of sun and not much more snow its made a mess of the Olympics. Theres a winding trail thru the mess you got caught in, its not so bad when the snow is gone. thx for the tr

[OlympicMtnBoy]

Welcome to cc.com and thanks for the TR. The standard route really isn't so bad in summer, it gets pretty beat down if you want to go try again. I haven't been up there in skis but I imagine the tour up to Upper Lena Lake and going up Mt. Lena or Mt. Bretherton would also be fun with more snow.