[TR] Bailey Range Traverse 9/10 - 9/15/2007

[rob]

Trip: Bailey Range Traverse

 

Date: 9/10/2007 - 9/15/2007

 

Trip Report:

Kyle and I spent 6 days in the Bailey range, entering via Sol Duc and the High Divide and exiting via the Skyline trail into the North Fork Quinault ranger station.

 

The Baileys had been on my list for a while and I'd never spent any real time in the Olympics, so I was pretty excited when we hit the Sol Duc trail early on Monday morning, September 10th. The hike up to Heart Lake was uneventful. We passed a surprising number of people, considering it was a post-Labor Day Monday.

 

Old growth along the Sol Duc trail

 

At Heart Lake, we stopped and had a quick lunch and then hiked up to the High Divide and got our first look at the Baileys.

 

View near the High Divide, on the way towards Cat Peak

 

Our first view of Olympus, which would watch over our progress for the next week

 

We followed the way trail onto Cat Peak and the "catwalk", a small part of the ridge connecting Cat Peak and Mount Carrie. We passed a group of hikers who admonished us to "be extremely careful" on the catwalk and that it was "very exposed and difficult." In reality, it was mostly class 2, and not particularly exposed or difficult.

 

We had run out of water at this point, but the group that passed us assured us there was good water on the other side of the catwalk at a flat camp called Boston Charlie's. However, when we got there we found a small, brackish and stagnant pond filled with black water. Lacking a filter, we decided to wait until we could find a cleaner source of water.

 

Kyle ponders his choices: Pond scum, or bourbon

 

What followed next were a series of the driest, hottest most miserable miles I've ever travelled. My tongue was dry and my legs were trembling when we finally found a small snow finger along the slopes of Mt. Carrie.

 

Despite having found water, I had badly dehydrated myself and was bonking hard. I was unable to keep water down and vomited several times as we marched on, looking for a good bivy. Kyle spotted a flat meadow on the slopes of Carrie, where I collapsed.

 

Our bivy was shared by a herd of goats, which showed absolutely no fear of us. They bothered us all night long, chewing our packs and molesting us. It was a sleepless night.

 

Goats make poor neighbors

 

Watching the sunset, trying not to vomit again

 

I spent a few hours lying down and sipping water, feeling nauseous. By nightfall, I had recovered my thirst and my appetite, and wolfed down a huge dinner and several liters of water. I felt much better! I was much more careful throughout the rest of the trip.

 

We awoke the next morning to the largest black bear I had ever seen in my life foraging along the slopes above us. We anxiously ate breakfast, while Kyle concerned me with his unusual affection for goats.

 

Kyle just wants to touch it

 

Waterfalls along Mt. Carrie

 

We scrambled up to the snowfields above the Carrie glacier, where Kyle practiced boot glissades.

 

Kyle lording over his domain

 

Kyle starting his run

 

At the bottom

 

We descended from the Carrie ridge and stopped for a snack at a boulder field, watching two more black bears on the slopes above us. We waited for another party behind us that we saw from Carrie, but they never showed up, so we moved on.

 

Near Mt. Stephen, we ran into teh suck, getting stuck into a horrible ascending schwack through dead snags and pine forests. We both ran out of water again, and eventually reached an open meadow high on the shoulder of Stephen. We could see Cream Lake below us, beckoning with its watery goodness. We found a drainage and a game trail and dropped down into the valley in short order, descending upon Cream Lake like monsters, filling our bellies with cold water and having an early dinner.

 

Looking back up at Stephen, we decided to avoid climbing back up and instead forged a path along the Cream Lake inlet towards Ferry Basin, where we discovered Shangri La. We set up camp here and explored the basin.

 

Waterfall at Ferry Basin

 

Room with a view

 

The next morning we ascended snow slopes and scree to the top of Mt. Ferry and got a look around. There was a gorgeous glacier lake below which was not visible from Ferry Basin.

 

Glacier lake from the summit of Ferry (yes, those are 'bergs in the lake)

 

Kyle gets in some more boot ski practice descending from Ferry

 

Next, we climbed to the top of Mt. Childs to get a peek of Bear Pass. From the summit, we saw what we thought was Bear Pass, as well as some great Olympus views. We were making good progress and had time to lay in the sun for an hour or so before booting up and moving on.

 

Ascending snow to the summit of Childs

 

Our route into Bear Pass

 

Getting up into the pass

 

Can we stop yet?

 

We dropped down from Bear Pass into Dodwell-Rixon pass, and set up a great camp, where we dropped packs and scrambled up Barnes for more views and navigation.

 

Camp in Dodwell-Rixon

 

Terrible shot from the top of Barnes

 

Sunset from camp

 

The next morning we dropped down from Dodwell-Rixon onto the Elwha snow finger. The first half of the finger was still in great shape, but we soon found several questionable bridges which will probably collapse within the week. There were only a few spots where we had to climb up onto the rocks along the side to avoid collapses, and shortly made it past the "snow hump" at the bottom of the snow finger and into the headwaters of the Elwha.

 

Standing underneath the Elwha snow finger

 

Waterfalls

 

Below the snow finger, there is apparently a faint climbers trail on the west side of the Elwha drainage, which bypasses the narrow, steep gorge via open meadows down to the Elwha Basin and Low Divide. We did not travel this way. Instead, we travelled down the drainage, crossing the river countless times to avoid obstacles until the way became too impeded -- at which point we picked a ridiculous schwack along the steep east side of the drainage. After suffering for 30 minutes high above the drainage, we decided we needed to get back to the drainage before one of us broke an ankle. We accomplished this by basically hand-rappelling through slide alder down a steep (~45 degree) dirt cliff covered with several inches of forest duff.

 

Several tense moments ensued.

 

Back in the drainage, we schwacked along the other side, finding the open meadow, climber's trail and found our way down to Happy Hollow, where we were promptly stung by yellow jackets. Eventually, we made it to Low Divide, where we dried our soaked boots with a fire and ate too much food.

 

The next morning, tired wet and exhausted, we made the obvious decision to avoid the boring, yet easy, 16 mile trek out via the North Fork Quinault trail, choosing instead to exit via the Skyline trail -- a much more grueling proposition. We quickly found out that the Skyline Trail was apparently forged by early pioneers of LSD, as we made seemingly insane switchbacks and U-turns high above the Quinault Valley.

 

We needed to rock a ~20-mile day in order to make our Sunday morning pick-up. We were able to do this, despite the insane trail and inspite of being benighted while a heavy mist crept in. We hiked by headlamp deep into the night until a suitable bivy spot was found near Three Prunes, roughly 17 miles up the Skyline. Four more bear encounters also slowed our progress.

 

We set up a ridiculous shelter using a tarp (to try and keep the mist off us) and spent the night by not sleeping, and by cursing.

 

Mist moving in along the Skyline trail

 

Kyle wiping his ass. This was a common sight.

 

More mist coming in

 

God beams coming through the trees

 

The next morning, we took a short (~5 mile) junction on the Skyline which returned us to the North Fork Quinault trail, where we finished off an easy 6.5 miles to the trailhead. What a trip!

 

We hung around the trailhead, trying to hitch a ride to Quinault (13 miles down the road). We finally tricked a couple into driving us -- a super nice guy out for a day hike with his girlfriend. They had no idea what they were in store for -- she had her nose covered with her shirt the entire ride, and was not afraid to tell us how much we stunk. She had to speak loudly, however, as it was hard to hear her -- every window had been opened, including the sunroof.

 

We hit up the Quinault general store, where we ate junk food and drank beer on the grass for hours, wondering if we would be arrested before my wife could get out to pick us up.

 

Good times!

 

Gear Notes:

Axe

Crampons (not needed)

3 liters of water would have been better than 2

[Adam13]

Very Nice TR. I gotta tell ya, you got me sold on puttin that on my list of to-do's. Sounded like alot of fun, The pics were great, I've dont alot of hiking in the Olympics when I was younger and had no desire to go back but that changed my mind. Great Job

 

also Goats are Bastards aren't they?!

[PVD]

Thanks for the report.

Sounds like a great time. Bears, sketchy terrain, slide alder, yellowjackets, irritating goats....good stuff. Enjoyed the photos, too.

Those Olympic goats can be pretty aggressive. At least a dozen of them harassed me all night during a recent trip to Mt. Hopper via Lake of the Angels. I got out of my tent three or four times to chase them off, but they kept coming back. It didn't help that I'd pissed 10 feet from my tent -- they love that salt .Where are those NPS sharpshooters when you need them! ( I'm kidding -- they are lovely creatures). I also had a bunch of goats stroll right up to me on Mt. Pershing a few years ago. At the time, I thought it was pretty odd.

Anyway, good work. I need to do that traverse.

[rob]

thx

 

Yeah, there was one fucker with a missing horn who kept bluff charging my partner. I think he was trying to distract us while his buddies tried to chew my pack straps off. They were pretty much impossible to scare off.

 

Oh, and there were tons of berries. I don't even know how many pounds of those jucy black hucks I ate. I was dropping turds like a bear all week.

[builder206]

OK now, whoa. Too much information. No more TR for you!

[jport]

Great TR!

After talking with folks at Low Divide about the Bailey Traverse and scoping the route, I'll be hitting it next year!

Your photos are helpful. Thanks!

[Kevin_Matlock]

... choosing instead to exit via the Skyline trail -- a much more grueling proposition. We quickly found out that the Skyline Trail was apparently forged by early pioneers of LSD, as we made seemingly insane switchbacks and U-turns high above the Quinault Valley.

 

Weeerd! Just did the Skyline loop a couple weeks ago. "WTF" was the expression of choice during most of that trip.

 

Nice work on the trip-n-TR.

[Sherri]

Well done, Rob! That stuff is sitting right there in my own back yard but I have yet to set foot upon it ....your pics and TR make me want bump it up on the to-do list.

 

 

[Trailhead]

Nice trip - we just got back from the southern part of the traverse 8/31 to 9/8. Just want to clarify something - it looks like the the photo "taken from the summit of Mt Ferry" is actually from the summit of Pulitzer looking directly at Mt Ferry. We came up the Elwa Snowfinger and went out via Mt Ferry. I am also wondering about your camp at Dodwell-Rixon pass - looks like you were at a different lake than we were (our camp was at a larger lake was just SE of the actual pass right against a ridge leading up Mt Queets) You can't really see it from Bear Pass when you look out over Dodwell-Rixon pass and Upper Queets basin. Where was the lake you found? It looks like its on the ridge connecting Bear Pass to Mt Barnes.

[rob]

cool, my partner and I were wondering how many people did the trip northbound. You could be right about Pulitzer though, I possibly got my pictures mixed up. It's already kinda of a blur...

 

Our lake was indeed near Mt. Barnes, somewhat below it. I think we passed yours near Queets on the way out.

 

Good trip! We had spectacular weather.

 

 

[Trailhead]

Right on - thanks for the reply. Our weather was bad just for one day - Labor Day - go figure. We had just got up to D-R pass when the rain started on Sunday evening. We were pinned there at the lake all of Monday. We decided not to navigate the traverse in the clouds even though I had done the route before. We went from DR pass to Lone Tree pass on Tuesday with partial visibility and it was nice the rest of the way. You guys made some good time, especially doing Skyline on the way out - which we had plannned to do. Did you see any helicopters buzzing the ridges while you were up there? They must have been doing either elk or goat surveys and circled our camp at Scott-Ludden saddle a couple of times. Or maybe they were just looking at my wife's laundered undergarments drying out in the sun!

[builder206]

Any of you see this guy?

 

"The park says 60-year-old James Christian Strong of Oakland, California, was last seen Sept. 10, leaving Sold Duc Hot Springs. He had planned to traverse the Bailey Range and arrive Sunday at the North Fork Quinault trailhead."

 

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6420AP_WA_Missing_Hiker.html

 

[Summit Horn]

Kyle is sporting NOLS rain pants. Is he a NOLS graduate?