Back in 2015, I had the opportunity to go on an amazing trip with some friends to climb Mt Olympus. The core crew was team tiny tent - the 5 of us who climbed Mt Baker together a few years prior. This was an epic trip, just under 50 miles of hiking - starting at the ocean and ending at the top of My Olympus - the most remote peak in Washington state.
2015-05-24
This trip started off like any other - goofing around in the parking lot. Sampling some rum gummies that Pam made a few days prior. General shenanigans… We had some new folks joining us on the trip that I had not climbed with before - Stacia and Jay. They fit right in.
Then we started the very long approach - 18 miles from the parking lot to the campsite just past glacier meadows. We had a good time with it, but this was a long trip… The first 10 miles was in solid rainforest surrounded by some dense growth. I love this type of hiking but not all of us did. We saw some wildlife along the way - a small family of deer around mile 5 - and there were some interesting bridges/waterfalls along the way that we all really enjoyed.
And, like I said, we had fun with it. 20 miles can very easily become a death march if you aren’t with the right people…
The flowers were in full bloom in May. I don’t remember what happened in this pictures - but Pam seems to have fallen and her bf/friend are just staring on in disbelief? There were big fields of flowers the whole way up the mountain - beautiful!
Around mile 7, we discovered the olympus shelter in a bad state. These shelters are really cool - built in the early 1900s, there is a volunteer group that refurbed them all in the 80s and 90s. This one took a hit from a big tree that fell - it’s still standing, but just barely. Probably going to need a bigger refurb this time around…
As we got past the 15 mile mark and elk lake, we arrived at the washouts - which had been there for several years at this point and are still in the same state as far as I can tell. There are some rope ladders to help you along, but it’s a slog to get through this area - hot and a lot of climbing to do… On the other hand, it definitely breaks up the monotony of a long flat hike.
The next 3-4 miles to our campsite were where we started to gain some elevation - I think it’s about 2-3k feet of elevation gain so it’s no joke. No monotony anymore!
Our campsite was right on the other side of the ridge from the terminal moraine - which marked the beginning of the glacier. Once we setup camp, we all hiked over to get a peek at it but we knew we had a big day tomorrow so we prepped our separate dinners. I brought along a backpacker meal, but Scott and Amy upped the game by bringing chopped veggies & meat and made a stew. There packs will be much lighter on the way down!
The next morning, we got our glacier kits together and made the short hike over to the terminal moraine (half mile) and the hike along the ridge to the lateral moraine - about another mile hiking alongside the glacier. This was a very different kind of hiking from the day before - rocks, wildflowers, and hints of snow…
Once we reached the other side of the ridge, the Blue Glacier unfolded in-front of us. This glacier is quite large, but it’s relatively flat in the lower sections so it doesn’t look like most of the glaciers on Mt Rainier or the other classic peaks. It is a beautiful glacier, especially from this ridge - the entire thing kinda unfolds in front of you and you can see clear up to the top of the mountain.
With most glaciers (and this was no exception), the first few steps onto the glacier are the hardest - the glacier is in it’s worst state of melt with lots of small crevasses and the like. Usually it’s pretty short lived, but it was probably a quarter mile of this type of challenging terrain before we were on sold glacier again.
Interestingly, because the glacier was so flat, the sun would heat up little spots and turn them to water and the water would absorb more head from the sun creating which, in turn, caused it to melt more. The end result were these narrow but very deep holes of the cleanest bluest water. We filled up our water bottles straight from the source - glacier water!
The flat glacier travel continued for a while - probably a third of the climb was just hiking along this very flat/easy glacial plane with very few crevasses (or very few deep ones anyway). I have to say I didn’t mind it, I’ve not been on a glacier quite like this - including Denali. It was quite something…
And just like that, the flat part was over and we had arrived at the meat of the climb. We had about 5000 feet to climb today and we spent the next hours climbing it. The Blue Glacier has a kind of right hand screw to it, so we just sort of wrapped around the mountain - always looking to the right to see the summit. As with most climbs, climbing up steep snow get the psych going and this is when it really gets to be fun!
The long corkscrew ends with a peak that’s directly opposite from the summit, with a deep canyon in between. It’s a bit of a bummer, because you are just slightly below the summit in terms of elevation, but you have about 500 feet of down and then back up again to do before you get there. On the other hand, it’s amazing to see the summit from this angle - There was one other climbing group on the mountain today and we got to watch them make their final approach and start the final rock climb to the summit. So, we decided this would be a good spot to take a rest and enjoy the view before we made our final push to the summit.
The final approach was a steep down followed immediately by a steep uphill to a flat spot just before the summit. The summit itself is a 300 or so foot high rock outcropping that requires some technical rock climbing to reach the actual summit - but more on that later. For now, this was the last big push on the glacier before something new
The summit climb was tricky - the side that you want to climb that has the least exposure is the hardest approach. The side you don’t want to climb - around the back side of the rocky outcropping - is the easiest (probably a 5.6 for those who know what that means). Unfortunately, the backside of the outcropping is directly above a 3000 foot cliff. So, while easier, it triggered some pucker factor…
Before we knew it, we were on the summit! This was a long hike/climb to get here, which just triggered more foolishness on the summit. Like I said, this was a fun crew!
There is was a USGS tag on the summit and a small case with a summit log in it for us to sign. Team Tiny Tent! Stacia spend a few minutes reading some of the other entries for us - so many different walks of life…
After a few hours on the summit, we started our descent. The first part of the descent was pretty fun - beautiful views cast in a very different light. We made quick work of the glacier part of the trip and before we knew it, we were back at camp.
The trip out was a bit much to do in one day, so we spent another night here before heading out the following morning. Jay/Stacia (who were not a couple) shared a tent, but Jay forgot to mention that the tent he brought was a single person tent. I don’t know how they did it, they basically slept on top of each other - it can’t have been very restful, despite how tired we all were. Thankfully, it did not rain or snow on us and in the morning - Jay was sleeping beside the tent… :)
We returned the way we came, back up the washout - which seemed very different than going down it for some reason.
At this point, I was pretty wrecked and 18 miles later could not have come soon enough. I didn’t take a lot of other pictures on the way out, but I did save a few pictures that I thought were pretty fun along the way.
Allison is the current editor and chief of Seatte Met and she brought along a magazine to read. She also wrote an article on this trip and a picture of me did appear in the magazine - although it was the back of my head… :(
Stacia forgot her comb, so she improvised. It’s not exactly a fine instrument, but it worked. The impact of failure are much greater than with a regular comb.
And my final parting shot - Goodbye Blue Glacier!
