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.
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