Monte Cristo/Silver Lake

This weekend I headed out to the old ghost town of Monte Cristo. (And old town in the mountains that was a mining town and was quite the thriving little place in the late 1800's to early 1900's.) There are plans to close down the town to all visitors for several years for some environmental restoration and cleanup, apparently there is arsenic in the water from all the mines. So I wanted to get up there one more time before they closed it.

So after work on Friday I loaded all my gear in the truck and headed out. I got to the trail head at 5:00 in the evening and I hopped on my bike and rode the 4 miles to the old town. The hike in, or ride in my case, is 4 miles of mostly flat gravel/rocks that was once an old road, but is now closed to all motorized vehicles. It is a very popular activity to ride your bike into Monte Cristo as witnessed by the many bike racks placed all around the campsites and town of Monte Cristo. The trail in is relatively easy however you do have to cross the Sauk River on a log which is quite large and wide so its fairly easy.

I got to the campsite at Monte Cristo just at 6:00 and took claim of the last available campsite. After searching for some suitable trees I set up my hammock and got camp all situated. Then I gathered some tender, kindling and fuel and started a fire in the fire pit. I sat and stared at the fire for a bit, then after that went out I went to sleep.

The next morning I woke up and met my brother and his co-worker at my campsite. (They rode in on bikes that morning.) After they set up their tents and got all situated and we all ate breakfast we set out to hike to Silver Lake.

The old trail to Silver Lake looked to be overgrown and abandoned. The trail sign now points to a different trail which was difficult to locate for us lot. The trail head is hidden behind one of the old buildings but once you walk around the building its easy to locate. The trail climbs steadily and is a mix of dirt, tree roots and rocks. You are amidst the trees almost the whole way apart from one short jaunt where the trees open up and you can see some of the mountains around you. It would have been a spectacular sight, but for us there were low clouds and visibility was severely limited. You climb 1600 feet over the 4 mile hike from Monte Cristo to Silver Lake but the hardest part is the last half mile where you climb almost 500 feet. Its quite steep but luckily its not for very long.

At the top the lake was nice, however by this point visibility was even worse and it started to rain. Clouds were very low and we were getting wet (I was not fully prepared for the rain.) We took a few pictures and filtered some water some the lake. It's best to get your drinking water as high as possible due to the potential of arsenic in the region. Our original plan was to continue on past Silver Lake to Twin Lakes and witness more majestic views. But due to the poor visibility and increasing rain we decided to skip Twin Lakes and head back down. On the way down we stopped at the creek and did some gold panning. There were traces of gold flakes, but we were getting rained on pretty good so we cut that short and headed back to camp.

By the time we got back to camp it stopped raining and started to clear up. We spent some time checking out the old town and looking at the history. Then we made some dinner at camp and then went to sleep. In the morning we woke up and ate breakfast and then packed up camp and biked back to our vehicles. The weather was much better and saw quite a few people heading into Monte Cristo as we were leaving. It was a fun trip but I wish it was a little better weather while we were hiking so we could have gone to Twin Lakes. A lot of cool history, and unfortunately it appears to be closing soon.

Region: Central Cascades, Stevens Pass-West
Distance: Monte Cristo 4 miles/Silver Lake 8 miles
Elevation Gain: Monte Cristo 400 ft/Silver Lake 2000 ft
Peak Elevation: Monte Cristo 2700 ft/Silver Lake 4300 ft
Difficulty: Monte Cristo Easy/Silver Lake Medium
Pass Requirement: Norhtwest Forest Pass
Vegetation: All kinds including ferns, moss, mushrooms, wild berries, sticker bushes, deciduous and conifer trees.
Water Source: You follow Sauk River from the trail head to Monte Cristo. 76 creek flows through the town of Monte Cristo. Silver Lake 8 miles from the road. (All water has the potential of arsenic, get drinking water from as high as possible.)
Wildlife: Lots of birds, frogs, slugs, various insects, chipmunks.

As always check out all the photos of the hike and every hike by clicking on the "Photos" tab.

Upper Lena Lake

Day 1

I had been looking forward to this hike for quite a while now. I was really excited when the day finally arrived. It was a Friday so I still had to go to work, but I contemplated leaving early all day long. But alas I didn't. I had too much work to do. Finally when my workday was over I literally ran to my car and drove straight to my destination. It took me quite a while to reach the first stage of my trip. 4 hours and a ferry trip later I reached Lena Creek Campground where I camped for the night. Because I arrived rather late and I had been up since 3:00 am I didn't do much other than set up my tent and walk around the campsite for about 30 min. Then I went straight to sleep for my big day in the morning.

Day 2

This day was...difficult to say the least. It started out great. I woke up packed up my tent and headed to the trailhead for Lena Lakes. I started hiking to Lena Lake and that was quite easy actually. The trail was really well maintained. It was a mix of dirt, gravel and some big rocks, but it was nice and wide and exactly zero blowdowns to navigate around. I got there pretty quick and spent some time relaxing and eating lunch. There were a handful of groups at the lake, some camping and some doing some fishing. I imagine it would have been more beautiful had the low clouds gone away. There was no sunshine at the lake, but at least it wasn't raining. After Lena Lake I headed for Upper Lena Lake. This is where things got difficult. As soon as you leave Lena Lake the trail narrows and becomes less forgiving with lots of tree roots, large rocks and several blowdowns on the trail, not to mention the intense gradient change. The trail steepens, gaining about 2000 feet the last 2 miles. I was quite tired by the time I got to the top. I had rested several times and changed my shirt 3 times. Each time my shirt was completely drenched in sweat, so whenever I stopped to rest I got cold quickly. The sun finally started peaking through once I arrived at Upper Lena Lake. As soon as I got to the top I laid down and rested for a bit. Then I set up camp and cooked some dinner. Then laid down some more, I was tired. But resting in my hammock looking out at the lake was quite relaxing, peaceful and worth it.

Day 3

I woke up after a great night sleeping under the stars in my hammock. I got to see an amazing sunset, stars at night and a

beautiful sunrise all while resting peacefully in my hammock. (By the way, if you haven't caught on yet, I much prefer a hammock over sleeping on the ground!) I made some hot breakfast on my stove, and started to pack up my campsite. After spending some time at the lake and enjoying the sunshine I headed back down the trail. I found going down was faster, but a little more dangerous especially with a full pack on. Because it was steep and my legs were very tired from the day before and the loose dirt/rocks on the trail there was very good potential of slipping and falling. I managed to make it down with only one minor fall. I slipped on a slick rock causing my front leg to spread forward causing me to almost do the splits, luckily I'm somewhat flexible and nothing major was hurt. I did see some folks from WTA doing some maintenance on the trail cleaning up some of the blowdowns. So that was nice. I took a quick break at Lena Lake on my way down and reached the trailhead in about 2 hours from Upper Lena Lake. Then I made the long drive home but was able to enjoy a nice ferry ride due to the beautiful weather. All-in-all it was fun trip and a good first trip to the Olympic National Forest.

Region: Olympic National Forest, East
Distance: 7 miles
Elevation Gain: 4000 feet
Peak Elevation: 4570 feet
Difficulty: Difficult
Pass Requirement: Yes. All passes honored here.
Vegetation: All kinds including ferns, moss, mushrooms, sticker bushes, wildflowers, deciduous and conifer trees.
Water Source: Lena Lake at 3.0 miles. You cross Lena Creek at 5.0 miles and reach Upper Lena Lake at 8 miles.
Wildlife: Lots of birds, frogs, slugs, various insects. Lots of fish in the lake.

As always check out all the photos of the hike and every hike by clicking on the "Photos" tab.