Hoh Lake, High Divide - Seven Lakes Basin Loop & Hoh River Trail to Blue Glacier — Monday, Aug. 25, 2014

Olympic Peninsula > Pacific Coast

With perfect weather last week, I went out to the Olympic Peninsula and did a four day backpack taking in the Hoh River Trail and the Seven Lakes Basin Loop. Day one: Hoh River Trail -> Glacier Meadows. Day two: Up to Blue Glacier and down and then back and up to Hoh Lake. Day three: From Hoh Lake to the High Divide Trail and counterclockwise around the loop, via Heart Lake, Sol Duc, and Deer Lake trails to, finally, Round Lake down in the Seven Lakes Basin. Day four: up from Round Lake to the High Divide and back down the Hoh Lake trail and out the Hoh River trail. About 75 miles altogether, with over 19,000' of elevation gain/loss. Each of these legs was between 17 and 20 miles long, but this isn't difficult terrain and I arrived at each of my camps by early afternoon, leaving plenty of time for exploring and rinsing off in the many lakes. All of my campsites required pre-registration, but I had no trouble reserving these sites in person at the Quinault Ranger station. Most of "must reserve" sites I passed weren't even close to full; Elk Lake was empty, for instance, both on my way up and on the way down, and I was the only camper at Round Lake. Hoh Lake and higher are all sites that require a bear can, which I also got from the ranger, but being used to ultralight backpacking this was a, er, bear to carry. The trails are all in great condition with a couple of very minor exceptions. The Hoh River trail suffered some kind of washout just before Glacier Meadows and the improvised boot track across the resulting scree slope is extremely narrow - no wider than my boot in most places. There is a bail-out rope ladder strung down the slope, though, so that offers an alternative if you don't like the look of the boot track. In any case, a slide there would be an inconvenience, maybe a minor injury, not a fatal exposure risk. There are also three or four large trees down over the Hoh Lake trail, but these can all be climbed over or, in one case, you go off the trail up the slope and over the tree that way. None of these blowdowns are insurmountable by any means. I dipped in Hoh Lake, Round Lake, and Lunch Lake. Of these Hoh was actually quite swimable. Round was very cold, Lunch a bit warmer, but both of those are suited more for a quick dip than a swim. Bugs were a constant annoyance but one expects this at late summer alpine lakes, of course. A much more pleasant constant was the berries; there are delicious ripe black huckleberries and oval-leaved blueberries all over the upper elevations, from Hoh Lake and higher, and lots of ripe salal on the way up the Hoh Lake trail. Plenty of red huckleberry too but I found these to be unusually sour. Go for the blues! This is one of the backpacking gems of the PNW and now's a good time to get up there. Not too crowded, ripe berries, and a lot of folks I met reported glimpsing bears and goats, which is a treat in these parts (I saw some deer at Glacier Meadows, but no bears or goats).