Mount Olympus
Eighteen mile approach. I was having flashbacks to the day after I did my first thru-hike of the Enchantments last October where I was so sore I could barely hobble from my office desk to the kitchen a mere 40 feet away, much less have to climb a mountain the next day.
Last September, I did a backpacking trip of the Sol Duc / High Divide Loop in the Olympics with a group of girlfriends and I remember seeing glimpses of Mount Olympus peeking out at viewpoints we stopped at along the way. It planted the seed that blossomed into the goal of climbing it eventually – I just didn’t know how soon it would be before I got the chance. So when we discussed climbs for the 2018 climbing season at a Peaks of Life meeting and Olympus came up, I was super eager to be able to be a part of it.
We headed out on Friday afternoon with our group of four – Forrest, Robert, Ryan, and myself – as Anita and Christine had started the hike earlier that day to be able to break up the 18 mile approach into two days. Our group had agreed to try to catch the 7:30pm ferry from Seattle to Bainbridge, which inevitably turned into the 8:15pm ferry (damn you, Seattle traffic!). There was a bit of anxiousness in the air to get on the road, a lot of waiting around, my favorite Patagonia adventure hat sadly blowing away in the wind on the ferry, and snacking on various candies and Cheez-its out of hunger boredom. After a pit stop at a gas station for last minute snacks and drinks, we finally made it to the trailhead at 1:30am where Forrest and Robert bivvied and Ryan and I curled up and attempted to get as comfortable as you can in a car (seriously, how comfortable can you possibly get when one person is sleeping in the backseat and the other has the front seat leaned as far back as possible?).
I woke up just before 5:00am to the headlights of an approaching vehicle, the sounds of car doors slamming shut, and the shuffling of gear from our new parking lot neighbors so I pried my eyelids open and forced myself to start getting ready for the long day of hiking ahead of us.
After some coffee, pack rearrangement, a chat with our parking lot neighbors (who Forrest apparently knew – not a surprise, small world) we started off at 6:20am at a pretty quick clip and settled in at a comfortable ~3mph pace, racing against the impending heat of the day. The trail was, thankfully, super flat for the most part and we hit the Lewis campground where Christine and Anita were supposed to be camping at by 9:30am. We didn’t see them (or rather, hear them and their giggles) so we assumed that they had already started out for the morning and our group of 4 continued on for the second half of the climb. We took a break at Elk Lake (approximately 13 miles into the approach) right where the junction to continue on the incline upward begins.
Photo by Ryan Dubberly.
As Ryan had described to us at our pre-climb team dinner, the elevation / mileage profile of this climb was similar to hiking from Issaquah to North Bend (if it were flatter) and then climbing Mount Si. This was our Mount Si segment. We were all hurting a bit at this point…I was breaking in new trail runners and had neglected to put my usual Superfeet inserts in and my arches were killing me while Forrest was battling an issue with his Achilles. But we hoisted our packs back on our packs and trudged uphill. As we arrived closer to camp, there was a sketchy ladder slung over a hill with a rope handline that was, as Anita put it, a “bag of dicks” to get down.
But mercifully, camp was just a 10 minute hop skip away and we arrived fully expecting to be greeted by gales of laughter from Anita and Christine.
When we got to Glacier Meadows, there was no sign of the two, so we unpacked our tents, creating mini gear explosions and plopped ourselves down for quick naps. Two hours later, we awoke to the sound of Anita calling out to us. We welcomed the two to the campsite and, with our group now complete, prepared our dinners, discussed our game plan for summit day, and turned in early for sweet alpine bedtime.
Sunday morning, we straggled out of our campsite at 4:00am and trudged towards the Blue Glacier and soon we were rewarded with a gorgeous moonlit view of the glacier as we reached the top of the moraine.
Photo by Forrest Barker.
We descended down the scree, donned our crampons and harness, and roped up to cross the glacier. I was on rope with Forrest and Ryan, while the other rope comprised of Robert, Christine, and Anita.
The Blue Glacier is really something else. We could see and hear water rushing deep into the earth in some places. As we crossed, the sound of intermittent rockfall broke the early morning silence.
Photo by Anita Gray.
We headed up to Snow Dome, took a quick break, and continued on towards Crystal Pass.
Taking a break on Snow Dome. Photo by Christine Kuebler.
On our approach on Saturday, we passed multiple groups that attempted the summit that day and most reported the route being out, which definitely made Forrest stoked for the challenge. As we neared the bergschrund that had been reported as “out,” we discovered a small snowbridge that got us over to a rock section before we had to climb out of the ‘schrund. Forrest led, kicked bomber steps up, and set up a picket to belay us up.
We crossed the pass and traversed behind Five Fingers Ridge and ditched our crampons below the false summit. At false summit, we then dropped slightly back downhill and prepared for the climb up to the true summit. Forrest placed gear for the first bit of it to make the route more obvious. We were able to scramble the rest of the way up unroped and were quickly met with gorgeous views all around us.
Crystal Pass
We signed the summit register, snapped our photos and quickly began the descent before we roasted during the heat of the day.
We were able to join two 60M ropes and do a single long rappel down from the summit to the base of the summit block. As we crossed back over the Blue Glacier, we spotted almost a complete set of mountain goat remains – it looked like it had been swallowed by a crevasse and then spat back out by the glacier – a stunning find!
The hike back up the scree felt like the crux of the day. It was sliding around horribly and we had started on the uphill section a little too prematurely. We finally made it up and back to the campsite where we nursed our beat up feet, chatted with our Mountaineers friends / campsite neighbors and promptly passed out from the exhaustion of the day.
On Monday morning, we packed up camp and headed on our way shortly before 7am. We were all eager to get back home at a decent hour of the day and cruised back to the parking lot – first passing other climbers, which became backpackers, and then day hikers, and then finally families with small children – marking our decreasing distance from the parking lot. We arrived back at the parking lot at 2:30pm, dropping our packs in relief, chugging water, and stuffing our face with snacks as we elevated our swollen feet.
Mount Olympus was such an unique climb and opportunity. The long approach is often a deterrent for many, but it was awesome seeing a group of individuals band together to tackle this beautiful climb for a good cause.