The Brothers/S. Coulior

Date: 5/15 - 5/16/2006
Route: South Coulior Difficulty: Basic Alpine.
Climbers: Jim Ferris, Chris Kirsten, Bari Bookout, Frank Jessep, Andrew Zuanic, Ann Oleary.

On Friday I met Ann and Frank at the 65th Ravenna Park and Ride to head to the Bremerton via the Ferry to climb The Brothers in Olympic National Park. The plan was to Meet Jim at the Lena Lake trailhead. We ate breakfast in Bremerton and then arrived at the trailhead at 12pm by which time it had gotten fairly hot. We began at 900ft up VERY gradual gain, and VERY long switchbacks. We then entered the "Valley of Silent Men" which is one of the coolest, densley populated forrest valleys I've been in. The trail follows the creek through the valley eventually reaching snow. Large waterfalls poured down onto swimming holes, which ran through mossy streambeds.




























A number of great hand-crafted wood bridges crossed and re-crossed the active stream.
















We eventually reached the snowline and the trailhead dissappeared. This caused us to encounter some minor routefinding issues. Kirk Alm had done the Brothers two days before us, so we tried to follow his tracks in the snow. However, we ended up not taking the correct fork at Lena Camp and heading too far to the east. There were countless numbers of treewells and snowbridges that were suspect and every so often we would plunge right through. After we all looked briefly at the topo map, we agreed found the correct heading. We arrived at camp in the early evening.















What the hell do you want, don't you see I"m trying to get some sleep? ; - )















The following morning we began heading up the snowfield. Our route took us from up a couple of narrow gullies, and over a moat. The moat proved to be the true crux of the climb as much of the snow had melted out and went into a dark hole just big enough to swallow someone. There was also a man eating plant that had long branches that attempted to block our way. We prevailed.














Finally enjoying a hard days work on the summit of the Brothers.














On the summit, Ann rests momentarily enjoying views on exposed summit ridgeline before she makes her way to the summit.















Summit with Olympic Range in the background.

We desended back down to camp and reached the cars at approximately 2:30pm. It was a great trip with great weather and cool people.