Mt.Olympus - Blue glacier route

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Earlier in the year, Andy had tossed out the idea of climbing Mt.Olympus over July 4^th weekend.  Making plans months in advance, especially for an objective in the extremely wet Olympic Range rarely pans out, but we all penciled it in.   Fast forward to June and the disappointing ski season had basically wrapped up and the continued high pressure and perfect weather is making an Olympus climb look like a pretty likely destination for the Fourth. 

We put in a camping reservation form, so we wouldn’t have to deal with risking the long drive to Port Angeles only to find that all the campsites were booked already.   Mica, Andy, Andrew, Matt, Becky and I were all on different schedules, but we eventually made it to the Hoh rainforest trailhead.  

The approach to Olympus is just as much a challenge as the climb itself.  The trailhead is at 570 ft elevation and the approach to our camp at Glacier Meadows is 17.5 miles and 3,500 ft of climbing, the next day we’d have a 8-10 mile 4,000 ft day to reach the summit, and then Sunday we’d have that 17.5 hike out to look forward to.   Fortunately the forecast looked so ridiculously warm and dry we really didn’t need to bring much in the way of insulation or foul weather gear.

The hike in took about ten hours, but was mostly in the shade of massive old growth.  The only wildlife we saw was right out of the gate, just a half mile or so from the trailhead. Just off the trail we saw a black bear and her cub toodling along.  We kept our distance, but it was tough not to try and get closer to the cub that looked like moving stuffed animal.
 On the hike in and out Andy, Mica, Becky, and I had the wonderful distraction of listening to the same audiobook on our ipods.   Normally, I’d poo-poo the idea of separating myself from the sounds of nature by having headphones on, but when covering that many miles, it was great to have an entire book read to me through my headphones on the hike to camp.

We got to camp late in the afternoon, quickly ate dinner and guzzled tons of water.  Alarms set for 2am- from what we heard around the various campsites, most folks were getting a very early start due to the heat, the crowds, and the likelihood of a bottleneck of climbers at the short rock climb to the top of Olympus.

It was so warm that Becky and I used our sleeping bags as pillows- long underwear was more than enough to sleep in, but we all got a few hours of sleep before we were up.   A dark climb up past treeline got us to the lateral moraine of the Blue Glacier just as daylight started to arrive on the horizon.  

The Blue glacier has virtually no rockfall overlaying the ice on the lower reaches of the glacier and hardly any crevasses, which is fairly unique in the Northwest- most of the big glaciers turn into jumbled masses of cracks of dive below mounds of boulders lower on mountains.  On Olympus, you have a nearly mile-long walk across an undulating mass of bare ice enroute to the upper mountain. 

A short easy rock scramble/walk brought us from the lower glacier to the upper, snowy slopes of the Blue glacier.  Easy travel across the glacier, through Crystal Pass, and on up to the false summit, a few big crevasses and some moat issues to deal along the way.  Fortunately we got in front of a some big parties on the last bit of the climb and didn’t have too large of a queue waiting for the summit pinnacle.

Andy lead the short 5.3 pitch up the summit and Becky, Mica, and I followed along behind.   Andrew and Matt opted for the 4^th class scramble route to avoid the wait for the 5^th class option.   Unfortunately the masses on the summit and those behind us clogged up the descent route, so we waiting on top for about an hour and a half till we could drop our ropes and rappel back to the glacier. 

The descent went quickly, though the lower glacier was starting to get a little tiresome on our knees and feet…heavier-duty boots and steel crampons probably would’ve made for more comfortable walking, but our lightweight boots and aluminum crampons worked well enough.   We took a long break at a small tarn just above the meadows and soaked our feet.   Originally we thought we’d be back at camp by mid-afternoon but it was nearly 6pm by the time we were back at camp.

Another ridiculously warm night of sleeping with the rainfly off the tent and barely using our sleeping bags.   We were all up a couple hours before dawn and started the hike out by headlamp.   With our headphones continuing to distract us from the 17 miles and sore legs, we made pretty good time and were back to the parking lot by 1pm.     Nice to finally get Olympus, I imagine it’ll be a while before we do that long hike up the Hoh again any time soon.