I wish I had a digital camera so that I could show you pictures already, of Jeff and me at Lena Lake, but you’ll just have to take my word that I was there. I’ll find a way to scan a couple later, if they come out well, and post them.
The hike was, of course, lovely. Jeff hadn’t been seriously hiking for over a year, and I can’t remember doing any serious hiking since the day hike my father and I took in Bandelier National Park when I was about 13 I think (13 miles up and down through 7 or 8 canyons… at least with mountains, the return trip is easier). Furthermore, I’d never done any backpacking at all. So both Jeff and I had a good bit of prep work to get ready for the trip.
I did a significant amount of that prep work during the week, running around on errands to get stuff that needed to be gotten. Unfortunately, there was still a lot of last-minute running around and packing on both the evening before and the morning of, leading to our getting off late and with less sleep than I had planned. Nevertheless, we left Seattle a little after noon on Saturday and headed south on I-5, the first leg of our trip around Puget Sound.
Lower Lena Lake is in the Olympics, not too far from Seattle as the crow flies but frustratingly far by road. Not only are the Olympics a mountain chain, so that roads have to wind around and through heaps of rock and dirt, but all the islands of Puget Sound are directly between us and them. (There’s a good highway map of this area of Washington on the website of the Washington State Department of Transportation.) This means that we have two possibilities: take the ferry across to Bremerton or Bainbridge Island and make our way around the islands (south from Bremerton, north from Bainbridge Island) or drive around the south end of Puget Sound, across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge (see also this movie clip). We ended up taking a detour scenic route around Tacoma because two lanes of I-5 are closed on the weekends for bridge repairs, but once over the bridge we proceeded fairly briskly along the highways of the Olympic peninsula, nearly all of which run next to the water. I could not wish for a more scenic drive.
We found the trailhead with little trouble, shouldered our packs, and started on the trail. As we had not yet eaten lunch, I munched an apple as we started off, but I wanted to get some ways in on the trail before stopping. I found the upwards trek somewhat difficult despite the grade of the trail, which Jeff assures me is very low (I must learn to take what he says about hiking with a grain of salt!). It might even have been easy for me as a day hike, but as a complete newcomer to backpacking and not having managed to shake my urge to over-pack, I found it challenging. No matter; I put one foot in front of the other and complained mightily, and eventually I made it to the lake without falling over.
The lake is indeed lovely. Unfortunately, some of our fellow hikers were not. While Jeff and I were looking for a campsite, we ran across one where some previous hiker had disregarded the rules of burying human waste well away from water! Disgusting and unsanitary, to say the least. There was also a group camped on the other side of the lake who had brought a bottle of tequila with them and proceeded to become loudly drunk that evening. I wasn’t particularly disturbed (mainly because I slept much of the time), but their shouts disrupted Jeff’s stargazing. I fail to understand why they thought hard liquor in the woods, on a mountain, next to a lake was a good idea, especially many supremely stupid things seem like good ideas when drunk. On the other hand, maybe they are merely following the law of natural selection, and where better than in the wilderness?
Enough about stupid inconsiderate people. Most of the people we saw and talked to were polite and considerate of their surroundings, human and otherwise, including the group that arrived close to midnight. They were unable to find the people they had come to meet, so Jeff let them camp on the beach near our campsite. We heard nothing from them but rustling tents, and they left their space clean.
I enjoyed the hike and the lake, but it wasn’t a perfect trip by any measure. Fatigue made me headachey and snappy in the evening, which led unsurprisingly to some strife between Jeff and me. We got off late on Sunday as well, and although we got back to Seattle before 19:30, it was too late to do much more than eat, shower, and fall into bed.
For dinner we went to Red Mill Burgers, a little burger joint at Greenwood and 67th that serves the best burgers in Seattle, according to everyone I’ve talked to. Jeff said that after a hike, protein and grease really hits the spot, and he was right. No hamburger has ever tasted as good. So Jeff and I have decided that our hiking trips must always end with us in Seattle in time to hit Red Mill before it closes.
Surprisingly, I’m not sore at all. I’m tired, and my legs and butt are a bit stiff, but nothing I would actually call stiffness. It’s quite encouraging! So next weekend we’re planning to take a day hike in the Cascades somewhere, for practice and because we have plans for Sunday and can’t do an overnighter. The couple of weekends after that are booked, but after the end of summer quarter, Jeff plans to shift his work schedule so that he can take a couple of days off during the week and go hiking. I, of course, have a flexible work schedule as well. I’m looking forward to having some real summer.
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