Mt Olympus

Aug 22-24, 2008

So its been 6 years since I first arrived in Washington and Mt Olympus has always been one of the those peaks that’s been on the list, but the question has always been “when can I fit it in?”  See, for those of you that don’t know, Mt Olympus is WAY out there, I mean WAY out there.  The drive to the trail head alone takes 5 hrs.  So when Aaron asked, how about taking Friday the 22nd off and going for Olympus, I answered: “yeah, I can fit it in”.

Its not that Olympus is a hard route, or technically challenging, its more about the adventure and the challenge of it.  Logistically speaking, its difficult, it takes 3 good weather days (in a rain forest), a ferry ride, a 5 hour drive and about 45 total miles of hiking…not to mention several hours of glacier travel, crossing a moat and getting permits.  Sounded perfect for the weather window we thought we were going to get.  Then the forecast started to fall apart as we got closer and closer……  But there was still one good day for the summit!!

After taking my “bosses” through last year’s finances, it was time to take off.  We headed out for the ferry around 6pm, caught the 6:30pm and were sleeping at the TH by 11:30 pm or so.  Up at 5am and in the overnight parking lot, packing by 5:05am……  It was too bad we couldn’t self-register for a permit and had to hang out until 9 AM for the Ranger Station to open!!!  Too much caffeine to kill to take a nap!!

So finally we were hiking by 9:30.  And man, we were cruising!  Hiking an average of almost 3.5 mph.  Something about the prospect of 15+ miles of hiking along a flat river valley made us want to get moving.  We finally took a little lunch break after about 8 miles and a little more than 2 hrs of hiking.

Now, the Hoh River trail is not only flat, but it is one of the richest trails I’ve ever hiked on; both in energy produced and exchanged.  It truly is an old-growth forest full of enormous trees, some standing and some fallen, feeding the others.  Reaching hundreds of feet, all in a quest to absorb more of the suns power.

We finally reached our little camp at Elk Lake at about 4pm.  Set up and went to soak our feet in the local watering hole.

In bed as soon as the lights went out and up by 3am.  With 3 miles left to the glacier, we figured doing it super early and before anyone else would get us to the summit first.  It was my first real approach in the dark in a long long time and a few of the spots were pretty interesting, including a large landslide/avy slope that had taken out the entire trail for about 100yrds or so.  Good times in the dark, but after about 2 hrs we reached the glacier and took a little break as we waited for the sun to rise.

We made good time crossing the Blue Glacier.  What a perfect name.  I’ve been on numerous glaciers over the last few year, but never have I hiked on true blue glacier ice.  I heard water running all around me, but only once saw it actually water.  The route is pretty straight forward all the way up to the Snow Dome.  We followed the Blue around a rocky spur and up to the right.  Aaron led through a few traversing switchbacks and were up on top of the Snow Dome in a short couple of hours.  We took a break and watched a black bear “huck the ‘schrund” and then run off.  Now, too bad we couldn’t do that!

The first few hours of the day threatened rain clouds for a while, before finally burning entirely off by about 8am.  Leaving us with clear skies for the remainder of the day.  After taking the long route to the summit (due to schrund issues) we reached the summit base at about 9:30am.

That’s were it got a little interesting.  There was a sketchy report from the rangers in regards to a possibly uncrossable moat surrounding the summit pyramid.  We fooled around a little trying to find the best way over it; do we jump?  Should one of us climb down then up?  No, instead, lets send Ty across that thin little bridge, have him set up an anchor and then belay us over.  Not to worry, it turned out a lot easier than we expected..  Soon we were scrambling up the class 2 ramp and arrived at the little 5.4 step.  I gave Aaron the lead and had him take us up.  He did a glorious job with only one piece of pro for his 20m pitch; slung a huge horn and belayed Eric & I up.

I took us up and over the summit to the rap anchors on the far side and waited for the other 2 to join me.

We had tons of fun rapping the route!  Aaron nominated me to take us down first…huh????  So we ended up doing about 1 full & 2 half raps with our 2 30m ropes.  Typically a standard rap would work just fine, but with no snow bridge and a giant moat below the standard rap landing we had to do a little angular rap and even donated a little webbing for future endeavors.

Finally back on snow, we all breathed a little easier and started our way down.  We made great time and were able to take a look back at the 3 other parties that started after us.

We made great time back to the moraine and Aaron and I could barely wait to review safety measures!!!  Agonizing!!!  Soon enough we were hiking down the moraine and made time for one last look at our little mountain.

Back on the trail, and tromping down.  We packed up our camp, took a safety break and were soon off to our second nights camp, at the 9 mile camp area.  We pulled into camp around 9pm or so, made a little dinner and passed out.  Thoughts of a 48 hr car to car were in our heads, but I was soon thinking…I’d rather sleep!!  5am arrived and the rain along with it; Aaron, in his bivy bag decided that it was time to wake up and get going.  Eric and I decided another hour of sleep would be perfect, so we said our good-byes to Aaron and drifted back to sleep.  An hour later we were up and out of camp shortly thereafter.  After a mile the rains started again and never let up!  The last eight miles were, in a word, WET!  When hiking in the rain, it’s a game in your head to see how long it takes until you fully give up, give in to your feet and the direction they want…..It took me about 6 miles until the pools of water were no longer avoided; instead they became the icy bath that my feet appreciated.

So sure, Aaron made it in the 48 hrs he so wanted and Eric and I made it in 49.5hrs.  Not too bad for about 45 total miles.  We arrived in the rain forest parking lot to a ton of tourists, all with umbrellas and laughter as they seemed so surprised that a day with an 80% rain forecast turned into a day of about 2 1/2 inches of rain……..

But hey,  “we fit it in”