Upper Lena Lake — Thursday, Jul. 7, 2022

Did an overnighter to Upper Lena Lake and wanted to weigh in on the trail conditions since there aren't a ton of recent trip reports.

As others have said, the first portion of the trail to Lena Lake is in great condition and pretty gradual. Saw multiple signs that the composting toilets are not working at Lena Lake Campground.

Things definitely get more challenging after the cutoff to Upper Lena Lake, though the first mile and a half or so is still in pretty good condition. The latter half of the trail to Upper Lena is steeper, more overgrown, and more technical. Be prepared to hike through riverbeds, up and down slippery rocks, and over downed trees. My fitness tracker clocked 1500' of elevation gain in the last mile alone! 

The stream crossing that requires some fording is 0.4 miles from the campsite. I am also 5'2'' and the water was about shin deep at 6:00PM when we crossed it Thursday evening and still shin deep at 10:00AM when we crossed it again Friday morning. There is a hand line up but I barely needed to use it. Very, very manageable even for a shorty. 

The lake is melting out quickly so you could probably get water from it if you are careful about where you step, but we opted to fill up at the stream crossing. There are some short patches of snow (maybe a few hundred feet across) that begin about 0.75 miles from camp. With the weather warming up, be aware of snow moats, tree wells, and snow bridges. Both of my friends and I punched through the snow at various points, especially near the edges of where snow meets solid ground. Definitely would be easy to twist an ankle if you aren't paying attention. No traction devices needed.

There are campsites on both sides of the lake and we opted to camp on the South end, close to the trail (campsite 6). It looked like all but 1 or 2 campsites were fully melted out from snow. Contrary to other reports, there was NOT any functioning bear wire on the South end of the campground (at least that we could find), though we talked to some folks who had stayed on the North end and said they saw bear wire there. Be aware that getting to the North campsites requires more uphill travel and crossing lots of deep mud and snow. If you are camping on the South end like we were, it would not be easy or convenient to use the bear wire on the other end of the campground. There are definitely bears in the area (we saw one while we were eating dinner) so make sure you are prepared to keep your food safe if you don't have access to bear wire. 

The composting toilets had clearly JUST been brought in for the season and were the cleanest I have ever seen. Nice.