I’ve pushed off climbing Mount Olympus every year I’ve been here due to the long arduous approach, so why not do it the long way!? My third time in the Olympics, my first time the park proper, and soaking in the highlights.

Off we go with heavy packs

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Heart Lake. Ben, who worked as a park ranger in the park many years ago, thought the hills looked dry and bony this low-snow year.

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Nearby peaks going in and out of the clouds

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Now in the clouds

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Part of the catwalk section

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Who turned the cloud machine on?

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Getting my first glimpse of Olympus this trip

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We opted to climb Mount Carrie this trip versus side hilling to Eleven Bull Basin

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Fairchild Glacier

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Mount Olympus

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Down the Fairchild Glacier

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Bootskiing

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Clouds stuck at the mouth of the valley

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More bootskiing and up the left snow finger

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Cool seeing the contrast between the vegetation and dullness

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Dropping down into Stephen Lake, our camp for the night

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Morning lake views

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Looking back at our marshy camp spot and where we came from

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Climbing up Stephen Peak

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This part of the Olympics seemed a bit more gray than I was anticipating

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But more vegetated below

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Olympus socked in today

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Clouds stuck in the Hoh River valley

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Cool clouds

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Nothing was that super secure on Mount Pulitzer. The rock kind of reminded me of tree bark.

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Descending into the clouds near Bailey Ridge

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Feels like a foreign planet

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Leaving the clouds and seeing the spikes near Mount Childs

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Queets and Meany, now seeing some peaks of the park I have zero idea about

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Thought this was Constance, but looking at the walls of West Peak instead

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More rugged mountains here than I initially expected

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Mount Barnes and its snow patches

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Arid post-glacial landscape looking into Queets. Possibly one of the most remote places in the park.

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Back to forest

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Queets in the clouds

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Slow moving terrain going up the river to the Humes Glacier

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We got up too late in the day and had too much fun so we couldn’t quite make it to Camp Pan at a reasonable hour. We decided to set up at the base of the heavily receded Humes Glacier.

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You can see Wyatt on the rocks, the glacial recession is massive given that it probably touched those rocks a couple decades ago.

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Alpenglow

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It was cool to hear ice chunks falling into the lake throughout the night

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Icarus

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Making our way up the glacier now

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We made it to the top of Circe, maybe the easiest of the Greek gods/goddesses peaks. Super cool position with a trivial walkup.

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Looking down the Hoh Glacier

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Looking back at the Humes and our lake camp spot last night

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Rainier

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Getting onto the Hoh Glacier from Camp Pan was more arduous than the beta we had given the glacier recession and low snow year

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Going up the Hoh Glacier

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Athena

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Now crossing over to the Blue Glacier

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Enjoying these massive looming seracs

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We split with Wyatt who wanted to climb Mercury/Matthias while we went up to climb Olympus

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The July 4th route, which was still in July 5th

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Ferry shot

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We had to make the long walk across the Snow Dome

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Forgot to take pics of the summit block because I was too focused on leading the climb, but summit views towards Mount Tom

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Down Snow Dome and the toe of the Blue Glacier

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The other adjacent Olympus peaks

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Circe and Rainier

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I’ve never walked so much on blue ice before

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The very end of the Blue Glacier, quite a sad sight

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It’s my first time coming here, and even I could tell from the pictures I’ve seen not too long ago that there has been a huge amount of melting on the glaciers

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Down to Glacier Meadows for the night

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I believe the ladder actually used to touch the ground not too many years ago

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Mount Tom

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Big trees

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Following the Hoh River

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A quick dip at Hoh Lake following a final brutal climb over a rough trail

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These tadpoles freaked me out while I was swimming

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Cool to see some of our traverse from Carrie onwards, vaguely tracing the ridgeline

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Up once more to Bogachiel Peak

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Pretty good views of Olympus from High Divide

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Seven Lakes Basin, looked more desolate than the image I had in my head

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Ah that’s when you know you’re done, seeing Sol Duc Falls

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I honestly think the extra factor that made this trip so cool was walking from my house to the Link Station in Bellevue, taking the new train which just opened this March to Seattle, then taking the ferry to Bremerton, then having Ben pick me up - then doing the whole thing in reverse

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I think I was the only person enjoying the views on the ferry. For everyone else, it was a normal weekday.

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The classic Eastern Olympic peaks, still need to get out there!

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Home sweet home

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Our actual route

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Notes

• This was probably ~70 miles and ~24000 feet of vertical gain over four days.
• I wore La Sportiva TX4s for this traverse thinking I could just bring a single pair of shoes but I really should have brought trail runners and a rock shoe for the final climb. Currently dealing with Achilles pain as I write this due to over-tightening my heel :(
• The Kahtoola KTS crampons were so good and much more secure than my Petzl Irvis Hybrids, so I’d be more comfortable wearing a flexier trail running shoe next time