Olympus TR

[swissman]

Olympus in day, we went, we did, we had fun and we came back!

 

On Saturday, Mike Bell and I set off for the Olympics. Unfortunately, Pencil Pusher could not join the party. It was sad and you were missed PP.

 

We got to the Hoh Rain Forest Visitor Center short past 7 pm, got ready and set off on the trail at 8pm. Great night hiking in the woods. The trail is nice and smooth which made headlamp walking a really easy ride. After a longer rest at the Glacier Meadows campground, for food and drink, we begun the climb itself around 3pm.

The route is quite obvious with a well established boot track. No route finding there. The snow was nice and hard, ideal for camponing, the crevasses open and obvious. No tricky bridges to cross. The stars were just stunning, only matched by a gorgeous sunrise. We had to go round to the back of the summit block to avoid uncrossable crevasses which made the route a little longer than it could be earlier in the year. We arrived to the base of the summit pyramid (West Summit) shortly after sunrise and a short scramble later (a bit loose, but all right), we had the summit for oursleves! Very nice!!

After hanging out in the summit area for a while, it was time to head down and trek back.

Hiking out is a little long, as one can imagine, but 20lbs backpacks made up for the distance. We lost the count of the parties hiking to the base camp carrying loads that would be more at their place on a mule!

We made it back to the car short past 6pm, a little sore and happy that walking was over with. Round trip time, 22:20 hours, not quite the previously quoted 16h record, but fine with us.

 

It was a fun day and sleeping sure felt good! Thanks for giving the push to get the ball rolling Pencil Pusher.

 

Cheers, Olivier

[forrest_m]

hey nice job - there's something very cool about just out and out covering a lot of ground, isn't there?

[JoshK]

Sweet! I always love the looks you get doing a "3 day climb" in a long day from the huge-pack people.

 

My favorite was when I ran across some people doing the N Ridge of Mt. Adams in FOUR DAYS with what looked like a pack fit for Denali. They saw my day pack and said "just going to the meadow?" When I responded with "nah, to the top" they looked mighty confused.

[Norman_Clyde]

Way to go, guys!! Wish I could have been there.

[pete_a]

Congrats guys! very cool trip!

if anyone is interested in taking a crack at Olympus is a single push...hopefully under 24 hours...either the weekend of Sept 7-8 or the 21-22...drop me an email, I'd still like to give it a try this season.

Swissman- curious what you guys chose for footwear. I imagine you did the approach in running shoes and carried some boots for the glacier, if you had another strategy I'd be curious to know what you did.

[mikebell]

Swissman wore his leather boots and I wore montrail trs lowtop approach shoes.

[Terminal_Gravity]

Nice Job, glad you had fun. Cheers.

[gapertimmy]

PLAB!!!!! I'm envious, i miss the olympics dearly

[lunger]

Anybody been up Olympus recently? Any news on condition of crevasses, moats, bridges appreciated--will likely solo later this week. Thanks in advance.

 

from August TR--wonder if still the case:

"The route is quite obvious with a well established boot track. No route finding there. The snow was nice and hard, ideal for camponing, the crevasses open and obvious. No tricky bridges to cross."

[Dante]

Yes, I was just on Olympus 10 days ago and the route was straight forward, still with a slight donkey path in many places. Route up to Snow Dome was simple traverse left to right, and could be straightened for a more direct, steeper pitch. Plenty of great water to drink below snow dome as well. Snow Dome to Moat was flat traverse w/o problems. The Moat (I believe you are referencing Crystal Pass, since Audobon route is out) was easy to cross with large bridge, but looked to be opening. At that point, you shoot back up to false summit and will face some crevasses, but can circumvent by going left and up. Good luck.