Ranking: 4/5 Though a bit long in places, the effort is worth it, as hiking to the base of Mount Olympus and viewing the Blue Glacier is definitely worth it! It makes you want to come back, and scale Mt. Olympus, for sure! There are good campsites along the way, the trail is well marked, and once above the Hoh River, on your way to Blue Glacier, there are some incredible sights to be seen!
Difficulty: 7/10 Most of the trekking done on this hike, is relatively flat, so you can eat up the miles, but…There will definitely be some miles to be chewed up, that’s for sure! Using the base camp we used along the Hoh, that second day is right at 18 miles round trip! And, in places the trail becomes a narrow thread as it follows along the steep embankment to the Blue Glacier. At one point, the trail is washed out, and the park service has dropped down a cable ladder with rope assist to get you to the bottom of a ravine.
Getting there: From Olympia on I-5, take the #104 exit for US 101N and follow for about 5.5 miles, then keep left to continue onto State Rte 8, and follow signs for HGWY 8W to Montesano/Aberdeen for 21 miles. This will turn into US-12W, which you will continue to follow for another 20.8 miles then go through the towns of Aberdeen/Hoquiam for 4.6 miles, following signs for US 101N, then follow US 101N for 89.7 miles to turn right onto Upper Hoh Rd, signage should say Olympic Natl. Park, Hoh Rain Forest. Follow for another 18.1 miles to parking lot. TH is by the visitor center.
Maps: Green Trails #133, MT. Tom, #134 Mt. Olympus, or create your own using TOPO maps.
Permits: Must register at the nearest ranger station, or WIC. For this trip, you can do so at the Visitor center here at the parking lot. As of August 2015, fees are $5 per person per night spent in the backcountry, and it costs $20 per vehicle to get into the park, unless, of course if you have a Natl. Park Pass. http://www.nps.gov/olym/planyourvisit/feesandreservations.htm
Hoh River, Mount Olympus, Blue Glacier Added 10-27-17
Day 1
10.8 miles, 995ft gain/648ft loss. Fitbit steps: 33,481 Today will be long day, and that’s not even counting the drive to get there! Greg and I leave early since it’s going to be a long hike in to our camp for the day, and after a 4 hour drive over to the Olympic National Park, we’re raring to go.
“…big cedar tree with strange protrusions growing from the side in 10 feet…”
After getting our permit, we start out on the Hoh River trail at around 10:30am and it’s a nice beginning to a hike. Flat, relatively smooth tread path through old growth giants, some are quite impressive in size, and there is a sign that points to one in particular, “Big Spruce Tree” that-a-way…We pass right by it, not enticed by the sign promising a rather large tree, as we’re focused on getting down the trail. Sure enough, we pass by even more huge trees, although they have not garnered star status with their own signs…If they did, the trail would surely be littered with posts proclaiming” big tree here”, or,” rather large girth tree” there, and “big cedar tree with strange protrusions growing from the side in 10 feet”, and…Well, you get the idea. Lots of towering old growth to wonder at as you make your way through the forest, I’ve never seen so many large varying species of trees all in one place, cedars, spruce, firs, and hemlocks seem to grow to impossible sizes here, like on super growth hormones…
The forest floor is carpeted in green, with ferns the prevalent growth lining the path. Moss is abundant too, hanging like draperies from lower branches, and lots of low growing vegetation like broad leaved clover fills in any blank spots on the ground. Sunlight filters through the canopy that stretches far overhead like mini flood lamps highlighting sections of the trail as you walk through the tunnels of the forest. Your eyes become accustomed to the dimly lit forest, and when you hit the occasional opening along the Hoh River, you feel blinded, like a mole venturing out into the midday sun, making you all squinty eyed…
“…or, “did I leave the garage door open?” you know, like the life altering decisions one must make or think carefully about…”
The trail remains pretty flat for the first 3.05 miles to one of the first campsites of note, (as it too, has qualified for a sign) Mt. Tom camp. There’s also a creek running down the hillside to the north of the trail for fresh water. This is the low spot on the trail, and from here the trail continues slightly uphill, not so much as you would really notice, for it’s an easy grade. The path follows alongside the Hoh River for most of the way, and even though for a good portion of hike you may not always be able to see the river, you can almost always hear it, as it makes its way to the ocean. It’s the backdrop noise to your thoughts, for after a few hours of the sameness of terrain, your mind begins to wander, and each person begins to think about other things, perhaps a problem faced at home or some challenge at work, or, “did I leave the garage door open?” you know, like the life altering decisions one must make or think carefully about… There’s really not much to look at but the trees, and having grown up in the forest, I’m bored after about an hour…
“…You don’t know if it’s trying to land on your head and pile drive you into the ground like whack-a-hiker…”
Occasionally, you’ll pass someone on this heavily used trail, and after having mumbled a hello to a resting father and son, and quickly falling back into our own thoughts, our reverie is broken by “CRAAA-A-A-AAAK!” to which we stoically reply, with wide eyed, “AAAHS!!”, break into a run, and look frantically behind us as we tear down the trail, looking for what we’re sure is one of those monster trees that suddenly sprouted legs and decided to give chase. Then, a splintering “PHOOOOM!” as a massive tree falls through the low growing brush and branches to thud onto the ground. We only catch a momentary glimpse of the branches being shaken violently as the tree falls. Talk about a heart stopper! You’re just strolling along, lost in your own thoughts, and suddenly a huge tree just decides that now is the time to quit standing after all these years, and tip over…It’s a bad feeling hearing that, and only knowing that it’s happening somewhere behind you and you can’t see it. You don’t know if it’s trying to land on your head and pile drive you into the ground like whack-a-hiker, or if it’s falling harmlessly to the ground in a different direction, you just don’t know until you can look around and see it…
It takes a while for our hearts to quit pounding and the doldrums of mindless thought to return.Surely the father and son we had passed only about 500 feet before, must have been thinking, “What in the world did those two clowns just do?!! Push down a perfectly good tree? For what??!”
At roughly 5 miles in, you come to a large meadow with tall grass (now brown) and a sign for a camp, called…5 mile… Again, the highly imaginable names they came up with leaves one filled with a sense of awe at such inspiring monikers…I can’t help but wonder if there might be a 10 mile camp, too! The possibilities are endless!
At 5.87 miles, we run into a shelter, (well, pass by would be more accurate), and it’s NOT called 5.87mile shelter. Nope. I know you’re surprised. It’s called the Happy 4 shelter, and I have to say…I have no clue where this name came from…Possibly from the quadruplet of overjoyed builders? Again, I’m left without answers…
“…So, just know that at 8.45 miles you’re gonna cross a creek, be it a log, bridge, tippy-toe or jump, who knows?…”
The trail continues to undulate up and down just enough to make you start to breathe heavier until you come to the next feature that I made a way marker point on the GPS, called “creekcross”, at 8.45 miles. I tell you this with some embarrassment, as I obviously thought it worthy enough to give it its own “sign”, but didn’t put a mental place marker in my brain, for the life of me, I can’t remember why I thought it interesting enough to mention…So, just know that at 8.45 miles you’re gonna cross a creek, be it a log, bridge, tippy-toe or jump, who knows? Maybe when you get there, you can e-mail me and let me know why I thought this significant, for God knows, I surely don’t remember…
Anyway, the trudge continues onto the next feature, and this one I remember. At 9.2 miles you’ll be at the Olympus Guard station, an old ranger station with camp nearby and a lean-to.
Past the ranger station, you’ll come to the High Divide trail junction at 9.8 miles, stay right here and you’ll finally come to our destination for the night, the turn off for Lewis Meadows at 10.7 miles. Lewis Meadows are just that, a large meadow with some railings at the far end to tie off stock. That was another surprise for Greg and I, to see that they allowed stock animals in a National Park. We’d just never seen them allowed before…There are a few large campsites under the large Maple trees that grow around the edges of the meadow, but we find a trail to the river, and decide to follow this down to see if there are other options for setting up camp, not really wanting to camp here in the meadow. Sure enough, there are several along the banks of the Hoh, and we pick a nice one to suit our needs. There’s a nice flat log sitting on rocks to park our butts on and we set about sitting up camp. As far as territorial views go, there’s not much to see. There’s the Hoh River, obviously but on its southern banks are thick old growth forest that cover the rounded hill opposite us, and you can only see a portion of the High Divide to the north, through the alders that grow up around the camp.
“…the water is a dingy and milky blue brown mix, hard to describe, and leaves it looking like a dirty Hoh…”
Those duties addressed, we go down to the shore of the river, and dip tired feet into the icy waters. Not for long, as it’s very cold, and if you left your feet in too long, it instantly gives you an ice cream headache. The river is filled with glacial flour, the water is a dingy and milky blue brown mix, hard to describe, and leaves it looking like a dirty Hoh…Go ahead, insert your own joke here; you can be sure we did… When we go to filter water, we quickly learn that our filter doesn’t like the cloudy mix. We don’t even get one water jug filled, and the filter plugs up.
So, we make a makeshift pre-filtration out of my clean bandanna, by filling a gallon zip-lock bag with river water, then putting the do-rag over a pot and pouring the water into the it, filtering out the big pieces anyway…This works better, and we can get about a gallon of fresh before it turns the inside of our filter black….
Just one of our minor mishaps with equipment, or perhaps, I should say just one of mine…
I decided to go check out the facilities, as we noticed on our way in, there was a sign pointing to a privy, so I thought I’d wander that direction and check it out. Turns out, it was closed for repair…So, I took my trusty shovel and paper to go look for a proper place to dig a cat hole, and as I started digging, I got about one, two, three, digs, then on the fourth, “tink”…And the tip of my plastic shovel snapped off. “Doh!”
“…so the soil here was baked into something more akin to pavement than rainforest duff…”
Well, I sighed to myself, at least I have a much sharper edge now, and so I continued to flail away at digging a hole into what should have been easy digging into the moist, damp earth of a rain forest, right? Wrong…Been that kind of summer, so the soil here was baked into something more akin to pavement than rainforest duff…
Failure number two for ol’ Dave…Then, after returning to camp, I went sit on my faithful old seat cushion, and I could hear a loud “pop”. Looking at it, it had developed a fist sized bubble, where the two materials had delaminated, so now it was like sitting on a giant blister. From previous experience, I knew it was only a matter of time before this cushion would fail…Man! For now, at least, I still had something soft to sit on besides my butt…
Dinner, and we sat around for a while before turning in. The stars were out in force, it was good to see that there was probably another nice day on tap for tomorrow…