Mt Tom beta

[obsydian]

Any beta on Mt Tom via Tom Creek? Any TRs?

 

Thanks

[David_Parker]

No personal beta. Theres a couple older gentleman who live here on Bainbridge that I think have climbed most of the Olympic peaks. I recall him saying Mt Tom, a sattelite peak of the greater Olympus massif involved bushwacking. That's about all I know. Go do it and tell us! I could ask for beta if you really need it, but don't you think it would be much more of an adventure without it!

[Alpinfox]

 

Are you commited to the Tom Creek approach? Most people approach via snow dome (blue glacier rt) I think...

 

However, I think there is/was a trail up the Tom Creek Valley from the Hoh River Trail. I've never been on it, but it is mentioned in my "Climbers Guide to the Olympic Mountains" (1979 edition). Once you got to tree line it would be a piece of cake from there.

 

Sorry, I don't have any worthwhile beta, just off-the-cuff speculation and half-baked ideas.

 

Please report your findings here for the advancement of scholarship and all that shizzle...

 

[obsydian]

Gathering beta for a climb next year, was just out on the Snow Dome this weekend and camped up there to do Olympus and Tom together, but got weathered out, what a rainy mess! Was so wet that we just hiked on out to the trailhead from there, got home at 3:30am. Have read about the Tom Creek approach, wanted to know if anyone had done that route recently.

[Flying_Ned]

Chris and I gave this a shot 10 days ago traveling ultralight and hoping to make Lakes of the Gods by day 2, Mt. Tom and West Peak by day 3. No such luck.

 

Hiked in after 6pm and made the Hoh crossing above Tom Creek. The Hoh was surprisingly high at our chosen ford, but we didn't want to spend a lot of time hunting down knee deep water. Found a nice camp north of the creek and lounged until dark.

 

The lower Tom Creek Valley travels easily through gravel bars, open fields and alder/maple stands. Beautiful country. The party soon ends as the grade steepens and the conifers and brush come down to the creek. We stayed close to the creek and eventually found ourselves walled in a small canyon. Very pretty, but problematic. Scouted the N side, then South, and found the going very difficult. On steep, wet ground, we retreated to a gravel bar at a very picturesque spot and made camp, deciding plan B would be our fate. That night it rained in the Tom Valley and we scrambled under our ponchos until the showers passed.

The next day we made our mistake. We crossed the creek and retraced our deeper penetration of the previous day, on the southwest side of the creek. We flopped around for hours on the steep slopes above 2 canyons, hunting for better ground and a more obvious route. We realized we were about to spend another entire day sidehilling, crashing through brush and fallen timber with only one more day to spend, so we decided to call it off-maybe only 4 miles up the canyon.

 

I have little doubt this approach is possible, but it is time consuming, difficult and tiring. Routefinding above the canyons is a challenge. Unless your objective is an actual bushwhack with plans to mark the route, I wouldn't recommend it as a viable approach to the Olympus Massif. It is, however, a remote and beautiful place with some good fishing holes and fine bivy sites.

[PONCHO&LEFTY]

please post some pictures??!!! sounds very scenic

[Fairweather]

Have you looked at an approach up from Elk Lake and onto the White Glacier? It looks like it would work...at least on TOPO.

[Flying_Ned]

I've not looked at an approach from Elk lake. Topo maps only suggest a kind of etherial romantic fantasy, rarely matching the heartless brutality of the dark and tangled Olympic jungle and it's seductive, steep entrapments.

[OlympicMtnBoy]

I've been up Tom Creek a couple of times, solo, trying to get to Dragon Lake. It's pretty nasty after the first bit like Ned said, but doable. I'd stick to the left side of the creek (facing upstream) and you might find remnants of the old trail. There were a few old tattered pieces of flagging still up when I was last there a few years ago. Stick uphill away from the creek a little when you hit the canyons. After that it mellows out a bit again till you get closer to the headwaters.

It's a lot of work, unless you like bushwhacking I'd approach from Olympus. It is really beautiful and unspoiled in the Tom Creek valley though. I ran into two bull elk and a herd of 19 cows over 2 days in there.