We spent 4 days moving through a rainforest and up a glacier to summit the highest peak in the Olympic range for our friend, Matt’s, birthday and

🚩 The red tape:

• This area requires permits to camp! Check them out here
• The Blue Glacier route requires knowledge of glacier travel, trad alpine climbing experience, and confident navigation skills

Day 1 → Seattle 👉 Lewis camp, Hoh river trail

10 miles 5am wake up call in Seattle to make the 4.5hour drive down to the Hoh rainforest with Matt & Carolyn! We arrived at the Hoh river trail around noon, and started out on the 10.6 miles (ended up tracking 11miles) approach to Lewis camp.

Overall the Hoh river trail was pretty cool! The vegetation was super unique compared to our usual spots in the PNW. I’m a big moss fan now.

We had 2 log crossings since the trail was washed out and the river was too high from all of the rain that had come in the days before, but overall, getting to Lewis camp was relatively low drama.

We got a camp spot next to the river which seemingly helped with the bugs and the bear wire system that the camp ground provided was suuuper convenient to use (and eliminated the need for a bear canister).

Day 2→ Lewis camp, Hoh river trail 👉 High camp

We had a slow morning breaking down camp and packing our things. We opted to get a good night’s sleep and take breaks so we wouldn’t overextend ourselves before summit day.

There was a spicy ladder that we descended just before arriving at Glacier meadows camp ground. We got warned by some other hikers that hornets were in the area, and unfortunately 2 of them claimed Max as their victim 😵‍💫 (He’s at a grand total of 8 bee stings this summer).

We ran into a park ranger who recommended we camp at ‘Upper’ glacier meadows, so we passed the initial camp spots we saw…only to keep going alllll the way to the lateral morraine. Spoiler alert, there is no ‘upper’ glacier meadows campsite. There is just glacier meadows.

We ended up with ~2.5 extra bonus miles with our heavy packs which we weren’t thrilled about, but we did get to scout out where we’d be heading for summit day.

Day 3→ Summit day🏔️ !

5am wake up call in Seattle to make the 4.5hour drive down to the Hoh rainforest with Matt & Carolyn! We arrived at the Hoh river trail around noon, and started out on the 10.6 miles (ended up tracking 11miles) approach to Lewis camp.

Overall the Hoh river trail was pretty cool! The vegetation was super unique compared to our usual spots in the PNW. I’m a big moss fan now.

We had 2 log crossings since the trail was washed out and the river was too high from all of the rain that had come in the days before, but overall, getting to Lewis camp was relatively low drama.

We got a camp spot next to the river which seemingly helped with the bugs and the bear wire system that the camp ground provided was suuuper convenient to use (and eliminated the need for a bear canister).

Day 4→High camp to zee car

5am wake up call in Seattle to make the 4.5hour drive down to the Hoh rainforest with Matt & Carolyn! We arrived at the Hoh river trail around noon, and started out on the 10.6 miles (ended up tracking 11miles) approach to Lewis camp.

Overall the Hoh river trail was pretty cool! The vegetation was super unique compared to our usual spots in the PNW. I’m a big moss fan now.

We had 2 log crossings since the trail was washed out and the river was too high from all of the rain that had come in the days before, but overall, getting to Lewis camp was relatively low drama.

We got a camp spot next to the river which seemingly helped with the bugs and the bear wire system that the camp ground provided was suuuper convenient to use (and eliminated the need for a bear canister).