My biggest climbing trip of the season started out on Saturday. Friday there was a big lighting storm and rain at Crystal Mountain. I left early Saturday morning in order to meet my carpool in Centrailia, WA at 8 A.M.
Daniel had a much more efficient car for getting us up the the Olympic peninsula. He just got out of a NOLS course and had recently climbing Mt. Rainier with the Mazamas.
We stopped at the Hard Rain Cafe for some snacks before heading up to the Hoh Ranger Station.
We met up with Bruce and the rest of our climb team. We divided up some group gear like pickets and some rock gear and ropes. I was amazed at the size of some people packs, some like 70-80 liters and mine only 50 liters. But I guess it's the weight that counts. My weight with the heavy rope was 53 pounds.
The beautiful Hoh river. We were attacked by hornets around here, and a was stung a couple times. They just keep stinging not like bee's that only sting you once.
This shot was taken from the Hi-Hoh Bridge. From then one I kept thinking of Snow White and humming the seven dwarfs song.
We camped the first night at the a group site called the Gravel Bar. Here is the Ranger quarters, there were bear wires witch are similar to bear poles to store our food.
We hiked a little over 9 miles the first day, and on day two we made our way up the Glacier Meadows. Here is Elk Lake, we got caught in a bit of a rain shower but lucky for us there was a shelter available for to wait it out.
Here is a tricky part of the second day about a mile from Glacier Meadows was 150 ft. rope ladder where a rock slide took out part of the trail some years ago. Bruce is leading and showing us the best way to do it.
Here is the first look at the mountain after 17 miles of trekking up the Hoh river we finally got a glimpse. The rounded top is called snow dome. There is a research station put up there by UofW problably to study receedinh glacier. Snow dome is on our route before we heading up to false summit and the rock portion of climb.
We made it the Glacier Meadows and set up camp. Luckily water follow us all the way up and there was water at the camp within 50 feet. Here is the yurt were the Ranger stays, although we met him and he was leaving for the rest of our climb to some tours down in another part of the park. The National Park service like all federal projects is dealing with lack of funding and sequestration.
The weather report called for a bit a rain on Monday, and so we decided to have a rest day. I would have liked to climb on Monday to be done earlier but I don't feel now that the group would have been successful, and we needed a rest to hydrate and calorie consumption. We did however go up the moraine and saw a bit of the route, which was cool because we'd ge going in the dark one Tuesday. That is the Blue Glacier, which is heavily crevessed.
Here we are on Tuesday before crossing the Blue Glacier, just about to rope up. It was a good place to watch to meteor shower as well.
Day light hits us as we are making way up the snow dome. We had to rope teams of four persons per rope. I was on the back end of Bruce's rope.
Taking a break and enjoying the with of the Olympic Mountains at sunrise on top of the snow dome.
Here is where the crevasses get really big. We are making good time at this part of the climb.
The snow dome from above.
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Myself just a push from the false summit.
The tricky part just before the false summit was a little snow bridge that was slowly dilapidating.
Bruce leading the rock pitch rated at 5.4. We were making just alright time at time point. There was one tricky move that some people had a little trouble with and we had to move the anchor closer because we ran out of rope.
Summit show of Mt. Olympus elevation 7,969 ft. Woo Hoo!!!
Here's a summit register left by the Mazamas in 1939. It is a large metal box and periodically the Mazamas collect data from it.
Here is a group shot of most of us one the summit. Tuesday turned out to be the better day as the weather was nice and no wind.
Rappelling down the summit block, this took a long time and the group was getting a little tired.
Daniel crossed the snow bridge below the false summit. This took a lot a time as well because we each had to be belayed across.
We now were moving a snail pace down the mountain. We were still roped up so we were bound by the leader and keeping the rope slightly under taut.
We kept taking breaks at this point for food or clothing. It was getting really late now and folks were running out of gas.
We had a slight trouble finding the right shoot down and had to back track a bit which took time, but finally made to to the Blue Glacier. We got back on the ridge just as the sun was setting. And returned to camp and ate and and a good nights sleep.
The next day we hiked back to Gravel Bar, here is me going up the rope ladder.
Here's is the last view of Mount Olympus and the snow dome and summit. It was cloudy and raining of and on now.
Deer were at both campsites and very comfortable around humans.
At the Gravel Bar it started to heavily rain, it is a rain forest. We got the tent up and cooked inside the vestibule. I planned my food out quite nicely and didn't have much when we returned to the cars.
We got up early the next day and made our way back to the cars in the early afternoon.
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