From the Lena Lake trailhead follow the trail up past upper Lena Lake and continue up the east fork of Lena Creek. When the trail deviates from the trail in a roughly NW direction there is a campsite that makes an excellent overnight stay before summiting. Follow the trail to the NW until you hit a small avy meadow just before the first cliff band. Cross this and the adjacent ridge into the snow or rock filled couloir. Climb the Coulior until the headwall and then work your way right and up until you can easily work left. If the climbing seems harder than 3rd class keep traversing.

South Couloir

Brothers Traverse

This is a great route that tests a lot of alpine skills.  I believe the route changes drastically depending on snow coverage.  The traverse can obviously be done from the North Brother to the South, or vice versa.  There is a lot of information out there on the south-north route, I did the north-south and am pretty convinced it's the way to go.

From the terraces at around 5500 feet (bivy possible here) head roughly north over occasionally fourth class terrain.  Your goal is the notch in the South Brother's southeast ridge, right at 6100' on the map.

Cross through the notch and into the Great Basin on the other side.  Descend steep snow and then contour northward until you reach the couloir leading to directly below the summit of the North Brother.

From here the traverse begins.  We started by scrambling down easy rock to a flat spot where we roped up.  We did two pitches of moderate snow on the east side of the ridge, using pickets and rock gear for pro, before transitioning over to the west side for a sparsely protected rock traverse.  From there another pitch of rock traversing brought us to another notch.

At this point we went down and westward to gain some snow and a belay in a moat.  Another mixed rock and snow pitch to another moat found us at the bottom of a steep, beautiful couloir that we then ascended.  From there, we made an easy unroped scramble leftward and into the gulley right next to the summit of the South Brother, and to the summit.

From here the route back down is just the descent from the standard South Brother route, and if you spent the night at 5500' you will hike right past your bivy site.

For us it was 7 pitches, all statically belayed.  It would be quite possible to simulclimb much or all of this.  We climbed at the beginning of June, 2009, and the snow was thin.  I think the more snow on this route, the easier it will be.

Description

Protection

Routes in The Brothers (south peak)