We hiked and camped at Lena Lake on July 4 and began our trek to The Brothers around 7:30 on the 5th. We lost the trail 3 times as we made our way to the top, adding a couple of hours to an allready long day.
The trail to the climbers camp is beautiful, circuitous and well marked with recently placed pink flags. The trail continues on the right of the climber's camp across the stream from Lena Lake trail. We made the error of following some flags and boot tracks in the area across the stream from the climber's camp and had to back track. Once we were back on trail, it was straight forward through the burn.
We were manuvering in the burn during a very hot morning. The trail was straightfoward to follow, steep, and shadeless. A party descending mentioned there was a way through a gully which would avoid much of the burn but we did not discover that path.
After the exiting the burn we ascended the scree field on the left side of the gully, necessitating a dicey downhill cross over to the right side when we realized our error. Once we found the well worn path on the right side, the path was fairly clear. We found a little cave for a quick and cool lunch spot before pushing on, with daylight burning as we were moving very slowly. At 1400 feet from the summit, I was ready to call it quits. A 10 minute rest by an "air conditioning" small glacier, along with the thought of having to come back to finish this project, motivated me to push on to the top.
The snow was fairly minimal. We did bring microspikes and ice axes and did not need them. The short snow crossings were soft enough for good boot steps and the larger snowy areas had a muddy boot path along side the snow. Helmets were reassuring to have and I would strongly recommend for all.
The summit approach was confusing and my partners who were leading found their way to the true summit eventually, which I was thankful for! The views from the top were magnificent and were reached 3 minutes before our self imposed turn around time of 4:00.
The return to camp was slow and long, and included one other instance of us losing the trail --- near the scree fields, requring a bit more up climbing to re-connect with the trail. Our last hour back to Lena Lake was with headlamps.
Glad to have finished this project which started for me 30 years ago when rock fall broke my arm 100 feet from the summit. I was happy to complete it unbroken this time! The extensiveness of the scree on this climb makes it less desireable for me than many other mountains. The wildflowers were abundant and best variety I've ever seen and the views were epic.
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