Trip Report

The participants all knew this would be an epic hiking and climbing adventure but wow, what an amazing trip!
Rather than set a “car to car” time record we had decided to spend some time and immerse ourselves in the wilderness of Olympic National Park.
• Monday, July 16th: Larry, Jen and I drove from Eugene to Portland to pick up Bob and continued on to the Quinault Wilderness Information Center for permits then to the Hoh Rainforest Campground to sort gear and swap stories by the campfire.

• Tuesday, July 17th: After a spectacular encounter with a bull Roosevelt Elk we backpacked from Hoh CG to Olympus Guard Station CG (~9 miles) with packs weighted down with glacier and rock climbing gear. Many thanks to Jen for helping to carry the rope even though she wasn’t going to climb with us. We arrived in camp early enough to practice some glacier skills before dinner. Camp was on a gravel bar along the rushing Hoh River.

• Wednesday, July 18th; we left our riverside camp and proceeded up to Glacier Meadows CG at 4,300’. The first tricky section of the trip was to cross a large washout by descending a cable ladder with loaded packs. With that out of the way we set up camp in the old growth and scouted up the moraine to look at our route for the next day.

• Thursday, July 19th: The alarm was set for 02:00 and we were underway by 03:15. We knew this would be a long day but it was even tougher than I anticipated. The first hurdle was to descend the several hundred feet from the top of the lateral moraine to the glacier itself on extremely loose sand and scree. The crossing of the Blue Glacier and climb up Snow Dome was straightforward but then the crevasses got larger and more numerous and the route more circuitous. The bergschrund had one snow bridge left and the rope team was very observant as we crossed it and proceeded through Crystal Pass. Some routefinding difficulties near the false summit added more time and we arrived at the base of the 5.6 direct rock climb near our turn-around time of 13:30 with a party of three just starting up the route ahead of us. We elected to enjoy the view from one pitch below the summit and then headed back down the mountain. Additional difficulties on the descent included one member plunging thigh deep into a crevasse and another suffering some muscle cramps but we made it back to camp before needing to turn the headlamps on again.

• Friday, July 20th: After sleeping in we headed back down the trail 9 miles to Olympus GS camp where we enjoyed another crystal clear night on the gravel bar with a carefully tended campfire.

• Saturday, July 21st: The flat miles between camp and the trailhead went by quickly and we saw our only black bear of the trip. Arriving at the crowded visitor center in early afternoon I’m sure we scared some tourists with our trail worn appearances. A mandatory stop in Forks for burgers and then the long drive home.

I am still in disbelief that we had such good weather in one of the wettest places in North America. This trip produced memories that will last a lifetime, just like a good Obsidians trip should.