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A birthday mission to bag the highest peak in the Olympic range
A birthday mission to bag the highest peak in the Olympic range
🚩 The red tape:
- This area requires permits to camp! Check them out here
- The Blue Glacier route requires knowledge of glacier travel, trad alpine climbing experience, and confident navigation skills
10 miles We had a 5am wake up call in Seattle to make the 4.5hour drive down to the Hoh rainforest with Matt & Carolyn! We arrived at the Hoh river trail around noon, all completed our Wordle and Connections before we lost service (iykyk) and started out on the 11mi approach to Lewis camp. We were wary of the weather report for this trip, but our spirits were high and we were hoping for the best.
We had 2 log crossings since the trail was washed out and the river was too high from all of the rain that had come in the days before, but overall, getting to Lewis camp was relatively low drama.
We got a camp spot next to the river which seemingly helped with the bugs and the bear wire system that the camp ground provided was suuuper convenient to use (and eliminated the need for a bear canister).
Overall the Hoh river trail was pretty cool! The vegetation was super unique compared to our usual spots in the PNW. I’ve turned into a big moss fan now.
We had a slow morning breaking down camp and packing our things. We opted to get a good night’s sleep and take breaks so we wouldn’t over-extend ourselves before summit day.
There was a spicy ladder that we descended just before arriving at the Glacier meadows camp. We were warned by some other hikers that hornets were in the area, and unfortunately 2 of them claimed Max as their victim 😵💫 (He’s at a grand total of 8 bee stings this summer).
We ran into a park ranger who recommended we camp at ‘Upper’ glacier meadows, so we passed the initial camp spots we saw…only to keep going alllll the way to the lateral morraine. Spoiler alert, the camp sites we saw were the ‘upper’ campsites. We ended up with ~2.5 extra bonus miles with our heavy packs which we weren’t thrilled about, but we did get to scout out where we’d be heading for summit day.
3am wake up call/left camp around 4am
We made our way up to the lateral moraine (again) and got treated to a clear starry night where we could get a good view of what ground we’d be covering. Descending the moraine involved a lot of plunge stepping through scree and praying no one twisted an ankle.
We got our crampons on and roped up at Blue glacier and the sunrise could only be described as cotton candy vibes.
We scrambled up the rock islands and made our way up and across Snow Dome. Crevasses started to get more prominent here, but we found a steep, diagonal stretch that allowed us to cross.
Because of the late season bergschrund condition, we opted for the Crystal Pass route which took us around the mountain, where we had a (sketchy) scramble to approach the West peak summit block.
Matt lead the 5.4 pitch as we smilu-ed behind until Matt put us on top rope at the end. The exposed corner that the route describes was definitely the most nerve-y section of an otherwise very mellow climb!
We scrambled the last section to get to the summit, signed the register, took a couple photos and quickly made our way to the rappel anchors as the weather started moving in.
We all safely descended and back-tracked our way down and across the glacier. It was definitely a slog and once the rain came in full force, we were all ready to be back at camp.
We had intended to summit and move our camp back down to Lewis that night to make our hike out 11 miles instead of a whopping 18, but we were too tired and wet (and hangry) to make that happen and the rain was still in full force. As we got back to our tents, Max and I realized the limits of a 3 season tent that’s withstood hours of straight rain. We managed as best we could, lining our tent with ripped up garbage bags to keep the drips from getting us or our gear and we were simply too tired to try much else. The trash bag strategy was effective enough, and we mentally prepared for the day we’d have ahead of us.
Woke up at 5am and left camp around 6am! The rain finally subsided and we had an ~18mile day ahead of us. We moved quickly with big dreams of Red Robin chicken fingers and milkshakes propelling us to the parking lot. Not much to write home about other than it was hard mentally and physically to walk for 18 miles with wet gear and we were all very excited to reach the car.
I walked away with only one bad blister, which I consider a win!
And yes, Red Robin was everything we hoped it would be and more.
Would we do it again? Yes! (I say that now as I have forgotten the immediate pain)
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