Mt. Olympus

July 29-31, 2005 Please note that photo pop-up windows close automatically. My dad wanted to climb Mt. Olympus, which is approximated by a typical trip to the mountains, with the benefit of a fifteen mile hike tacked onto the start and finish. My parents drove up from Eugene on Friday. We took the ferry across the Sound, which took a while, and drove to Hoh. We arrived at 4pm, significantly later than we had planned. At 4:30 we started hiking through the rainforest. The trail is about as good as trails get, and the forest is very nice, but fifteen miles of rainforest is simply excessive. There were several stream crossings , though only one required wading. We found a number of absolutely behemoth cedars , as well as large areas covered in clover. We ran into some rangers at the Hoh River "Guard Station", ten miles in, who insisted that we fill out some kind of permit. After getting the permit, we crossed the famous bridge across a suprisingly deep ravine, and finally started gaining elevation. Thinking that we had only 1000 vertical feet to Elk Lake, we got frustrated and fished out our headlamps when it became clear that it was dark, and the lake was not close. When I found a nice camp next to a creek, there was no debate about where the stupid lake was, and cooked dinner. We had covered more like two thousand feet from the valley floor. We got to bed late. The next morning we got a skier start (as opposed to an alpine start), and walked out of camp at 7 or so. After two minutes we arrived at Elk Lake, and the mystery from the previous night was resolved. The lake isn't very nice, I was glad to have camped where we did. Just above the lake, we ran into a herd of the lake's namesake. I was jealous of the bushwhacking abilities that elk possess. We continued hiking, through Glacier Meadows (which isn't close to a glacier, and aren't meadows), past innumerable wooden shelters and even a yurt. We were wondering why on earth anyone took the time and energy to get a yurt up into an area that is not particularly appealing. After the so-called Meadows, we got about treeline, and walked up old moraines to the Moraine. And will you look at that, there's a mountain here after all! The impressive icefalls of the Blue Glacier are quite pretty, and the isolation of the area makes the scenery that much more impressive. It would be a great place for skiing earlier in the year. I'll come back when I'm allowed to bike the first ten miles. After scrumbling down the moraine, we killed more time adjusting and attaching crampons . Eventually we headed across the broken lower glacier , which was hard blue ice in irregular patterns. Compared to what Jason and Sky found two years ago, crampons were absolutely mandatory. Not many real crevasses, but the glacier was a mass of three foot high ribs of blue ice, with meltwater running between them, occasionally collecting in pools. I've never seen anything like it. We were forced onto the rock on the other side of the glacier, and we killed more time taking crampons off. Some pleasant scrambling up decent rock brought us back to snow, where we put our crampons on again. I was happy to finally be on snow and be able to make faster progress. A bit more walking, a quick hop over a budding crevasse, and we were on the Snow Dome. We roped up, chatted with the only other climbing party we encountered all weekend, and walked up the softening snow. After debating whether to cross Crystal Pass and approach the summit from behind, we gave in to temptation and stupidly chose the direct route . We found 45 degree snow, to rock, to more snow above a gaping schrund. The rock was particularly sketchy, dealing with crampons on floppy sneakers on rock. After the schrund navigation I sprinted up the last little bit of steep snow, my shoes soaked and my feet frozen (sneakers are not inappropriate footwear, but take warm socks and stick your feet in plastic bags). I started soloing up the rock, but came to a step that I didn't much feel like soloing given my wet, floppy sneakers. My dad showed up with the rope, and he led the little rock pitch (a few low fifth class moves), placing a #13 stopper and a #2 Camalot. I followed to the summit . The terrain up there is very pretty, with the Pacific on one side and Puget Sound on the other. What a spectacularly isolated area, and we were all alone! After rapping the rock (our 50m rope was overkill, a 30 would easily suffice), we scrambled up a subsidiary summit and descended behind the crags, through Crystal Pass. This was longer but far superior to the cramponed-sneakers-on-rock we encountered going up. One crevasse crossing and were got to the pass. We didn't bother to rope up or put on crampons again, and soon we slid down Snow Dome. Oh, my kingdom for a pair of skis. After doing my best to fall in a moat, and proving the worth of my whippets, we were on the rock. Tedious downscrambling brought us to the bare ice below. Putting on the crampons yet again, we crossed the ice, went up the moraine, and headed down the trail. We got back to camp, ate dinner, and swatted mosquitos. The next morning we hiked out , which was a wee bit tedious. We took the time to experiment with photography in the rainforest, which proved difficult. In the end we figured out what setting the digital Canons require . Fifteen miles of rainforest is like eating a gallon of ice cream. The first bit is pleasant, but finishing it off is painful. This is a trip worth doing for the scenery. The rainforest is very nice and quite unique; the Olympus Massif is genuine alpine terrain, and the isolation induces greater appreciation of the surroundings. Take comfortable shoes and a water filter.