We did a 2-night backpacking trip along the Hoh River, staying one night at Olympus guard station and one night at Hoh Lake. GET THERE EARLY!! We made the mistake of assuming that because we were starting our trip on a Wednesday that we could roll in midday. Nope! We got stuck waiting over an hour in a long line of cars.
HOH RIVER WASHOUT: The otherwise delightful Hoh River Trail has been obliterated from about 8 miles in to 8.5 miles in (i.e., heading away from the parking lot). It must have been a truly furious and awesome winter and spring - the trail is GONE!!!  Entirely obliterated and a new river channel flows where the trail once was. There is an unholy mess of large blowdowns, branches, new vegetation, slide alder, mud, rocks, river sand to navigate through. You can follow the footsteps from previous hikers to pick a way through but it’s slow going and not always clear where to go. You must also cross then re-cross the channel. There’s orange tape flagging 2 log jams that you can use to get across the river channel.  You need to cross it, bushwhack a little then cross back over.
Also there is separate orange tape flagging what we think was the horse ford? This flagging was closer to the start of the destroyed section (8 mile mark as you are hiking in). The water was deep enough that we weren’t sure why it would be flagged otherwise.

We wandered a bit on our first time through and this half mile took us about 45 minutes. The second time through took us about 35 minutes.

HOH LAKE TRAIL: The trail alternates between pleasant sections in good shape and sections that seem hellbent on breaking you. There is a massive washout in the first mile after the junction with the Hoh River trail. There’s a rough re-route but stay away from the edge as it’s often just a “dirt cornice” with a thin layer of roots and dirt hanging out over thin air. Steep eroded and overgrown with numerous blowdowns. And that’s apart from the relentless elevation gain of about 4,000 feet up to the lake. 

HOH RIVER CAMPING: many sites at Olympus guard station. Bear wire was operating fine. Pleasant camping and the bugs were not bad. There were a few but not enough that we used insect repellent. 

CAMPING AT HOH LAKE: We saw one bear right by the lake. Use the bear wire!! 1.8 miles from Hoh Lake at 3500 feet, right by the sign announcing that campfires are never allowed above 3500 feet, there is a nice campsite which I don’t think is listed at recreation.gov but seems official. CB Flats group campsite: about .8 miles below Hoh Lake, seemed lovely and was unoccupied both times we passed by. There are many unofficial campsites and several signed official campsites at the lake itself. The bear wire is functional and so is the somewhat stinky privy. Good swimming!

BUGS, BERRIES & FLOWERS: huckleberries abundant at Hoh Lake! Some flowers but not that many. Some annoying insects like mosquitoes and flies but bearable with bug spray. 
We enjoyed being at this serene and lovely lake, but maybe next time we will just descend from the 7 Lakes Basin area, rather than sweat our way up from the Hoh River valley!!!

An epic 5 day thru hike of glaciers, high peaks, berries, flowers, and rainforest from Sol Duc Park > Hoh Lake > Blue Glacier > Hoh TH

Sol Duc TH: Parking is very full because it shares with day hikers. We used the shuttle service of Olympic Hiking Co

Day 1 Sol Duc TH > Seven mile group camp. The trail is a steady grade in beautiful old growth forset. The detour to Sol Duc falls is certainly worth it. There are no privys at this site. Water access is easy.

Day 2 Sevenmile > CB Flats (below hoh lake) This was a quad burner but the trail is well marked, used, and easy to follow. On the uphill, your last water source will be Heart Lake. The huckleberries and blueberries were everywhere in the subalpine. Above heart lake the views keep getting better and the wildflowers more pronounced. 360 views included Mt Olympus, Mt Tom, and of course the (more than) Seven Lakes Basin. The spur to bogachiel peak is certainly worth it and one of my party members successfully activated the peak with their HAM radio, which is only the 6th time that's been done.

The decent down to Hoh Lake is also beautiful winding down the high divide. We saw a black bear and cub at the lake. Definitely would recommend swimming in the lake it was joyous! 

The throne privy is at CB flats.

Day 3 CB flats > Elk Lake This was a tough day for a lot of the group. The trail down to the hoh river valley is steep with switchbacks. Additionally, because it isn't used as much there are several blow downs and brush. (SIDE NOTE: I LOST MY BLUE SANDAL DURING THIS SECTION, IF FOUND, I WILL PAY FOR SHIPPPING!). 

Once we reached the hoh river valley trail we took the left and walked through the big tress. At 12.4 mile camp the flatness turned to steepness and the stair master began without stopping until Elk Lake. 

Elk lake is a bit lack luster. It's hard to access the lake. The privy is also full so only cat holes, watch where you step. A lot of other campers were filtering water at Martin Creek.

Day 4 Elk Lake > Blue Glacier > Olympus Guard Station 
The view of Blue Glacier from the lateral moraine is worth every ounce of sweet! From elk lake it is nothing but uphill. I highly recommend the lateral moraine over the terminus. The view is STUNNING! The rope ladder is very secure but is a time suck bottle neck because most people go one at a time. Be patient though, people are nervous about it.  

Olympus Guard Station has two privys, a great water source and plenty of camping. A lot of people were camped on the gravel bar

Day 5 OGS > Hoh TH 
The only tricky part is the water crossing a mile west of OGS. On the main trail you cross a side stream of the hoh onto an island, walk .25 then cross back over. The water is low enough to ford the western side but on the east you will walk over a log jam.

Other than that enjoy the ancient forest!

Started 6:30 morning of the 2nd. Plenty of water along the trail and didn’t have to carry over a liter. Spent the night in Glacier Meadows and it was pretty buggy, but not terrible. Left at 4am for the summit. Glacier crossing wasn’t bad, but did require a little route finding. The summit climb was fun and summited around 10am. Made it back to Glacier Meadows at 2pm and back to the parking lot at 11pm. Big day, but a great day

3 day, 2 night backpacking trip. Both nights stayed at Lewis Meadow.

Day 1: TH to Lewis Meadows (10.5 miles). Left Seattle at 5:45am and got to the Hoh River Trail Entrance at 9:45am. I waited an hour and 45 minutes in line as they were metering cars for entrance. Definitely make sure you are aware that there will be a significant wait to enter the park if you are arriving on a Fri-Sun mid morning. Started hiking around noon and made it to Lewis Meadows around 3:45pm. The trail to Lewis Meadows is flat and beautiful, but not many dramatic views as you are wandering through dense forest with intermittent glimpses of the Hoh River. There is a river crossing before Olympus Guard Station that has orange flags tied on both sides of the river where the trail is, but it is best to hike another 50 yards up stream to cross via a large flat log. Hike back down stream to the orange ribbons once on the other side to connect with the trail again. There is a second crossing about 10 mins after that, which is easiest to cross directly at the trail, over a bunch of fallen logs. No need to hike down stream at that one. Lewis Meadows is a great campsite with many spots, I recommend going down to the river and hiking downstream quite a bit for the best ones.

Day 2 Lewis Meadows to Blue Glacier Lateral Moraine and back (18ish miles). For the first few miles the trail is pretty flat until you hit Elk Lake and Marlin Creek, at that point it starts climbing. The forest opens up and you get some nice views of the mountains and creeks leading to the Hoh. There are some exposed sections that could make people nervous and you need to be cautious of your footing. There is also a rope with wooden ladder over a washout section, a roughly 150' down climb. It is not that difficult (I watched a kid crush it) but could make you uncomfortable if you don't like heights. Keep climbing to glacier meadows which was nice but filled with mosquitos. There are some beautiful wildflowers in this section, as well as salmon berries. The last section is pretty rocky but it is all worth it once you get to the glacier. Ate lunch up there and hiked back to Lewis Meadows. This took me about 8 hours with not much of a lunch break so if you are day hiking out and back from Lewis I recommend starting very early.

Day 3: Lewis Meadows to TH, about 3.5 hours hiking fast.

Looking back at this trip I definitely shouldn't have done Lewis Meadows to the glacier and back in one day, it beat up my legs bigtime. I thought only taking a day pack would make up for the distance but next time I will camp at Elk or Marlin Creek. Not much wildlife, just a bunny and grouse along the way.

I did this as a two night backpack from July 2-4 staying at Happy Four the first night and Glacier Meadows the second. The trail was mostly in great condition, and is pretty flat until the climb to the Glacier Meadows. Occasionally, there are sections where salmonberry is overgrown, but I was fine with shorts on though you'd definitely want to check for ticks. Between Happy Four campsite and Olympus Guard station, there's a stream crossing that is pretty sketchy if you cross where the trail wants you to. Instead you might want to follow the overgrown trail a bit further until you reach a log crossing. The log crossing is also fairly sketchy though since the stream is moving fast so you definitely want to unclip your backpack if you've got a big pack on.

Otherwise the trail is beautiful and smooth sailing until you get to a fairly sketchy section before Glacier meadows, which consists of a fairly narrow trail alongside extreme exposure and sheer dropoffs on your right. It's not dangerous if you're careful, but it might be scary if you're scared of exposure. And then you get to the washout right after, which consists of descending a really long and steep rope and rope ladder, which is even sketchier than it looks in the photos, especially with a pack on. A single slip here will probably lead to a bad injury or worse. I've been on a fair amount of mountaineering trips and this is still one of the sketchiest parts of a trail I've encountered so be careful here. After that, the trail to the Blue Glacier is uphill through beautiful but buggy meadows, and a couple easy small snowfields. I had the Blue Glacier viewpoint to myself and it was absolutely stunning, the scale of the ice sheet is incredible! 

Warning: The mosquitoes weren't bad for most of the hike, but they were really terrible at Glacier Meadows where I camped, I basically just stayed inside my tent the whole time. I don't think any of the campsites at Glacier Meadows avoids them unfortunately. A couple of swollen ticks also crawled on my tent, so definitely be on the watchout for them, though I don't believe they were deer ticks.