Hoh River Trail to Five Mile Island, Hoh Lake & Hoh River Trail to Blue Glacier — Tuesday, May. 30, 2023

I don't have a lot of time but wanted to leave a quick conditions report just in case someone needs it...

5/30-6/1 did a 3 day/2 night backpacking trip at Hoh River Trail, staying at Olympus Ranger Station both nights with a side trip up to Hoh Lake on the second day.

We drove out 5/29 and stayed at Minnie Peterson Campground, one of 3 free with discover pass campgrounds around the entrance to Upper Hoh Road (we had first tried Hoh Oxbow, which was full, but Minnie Peterson was totally empty. There's also Hoh River Trust...) so we were able to get to the trailhead bright and early 5/30.

Hoh River trail was in good condition and easy hiking up until the water crossing right before Olympus Ranger Station. I'm not sure when this happened, but at some point in recent years, water has diverted and now there are two mid shin deep fords right before the camp. I followed rycoley's advice on their 5/19 report, and turned left on a faint boot path at the first crossing. Unfortunately, I lost the trail (it's not super easy to follow) and ended up crossing over too soon on a big log and having to do the second ford. On the way back, I was able to use this trail and completely avoid the fords. It's a little hard to navigate this section, especially as the water doesn't show on any of the maps... I think it's probably an easier bet to just bring sandals or water shoes and just do the ford. It's really not a scary ford, just cold. Apparently there is another ford before Lewis Meadow, but it's after the junction to Hoh Lake and I didn't need to cross it.

Olympus Ranger Station campground was a lovely enchanted meadow with lots of very gentle and habituated deer roaming around. The bear wire is in good condition, though I had a bit of trouble finding it because it was hidden behind someone's campsite. There are limited spaces on the wire, but you are also allowed to do hangs around here, and I saw lots of trees that would be appropriate (just make sure to do 12 ft above the ground and 10 ft from the tree). 2 toilets in the meadows, so it was a pretty luxurious trip. We saw a work party with some mules, which was cool. Set up camp and spent some time relaxing in the meadows and trying to dry out my shoes in the sun, with limited success. lol.

On the second day, I had originally planned to try to get back to the glacier, but after talking to some other hikers who had said the snow was pretty sketchy past Elk Lake, I decided to go for Hoh Lake instead. The trail from Hoh River to Hoh Lake is pretty rugged... It climbs pretty steeply up to the ridge and then mellows a bit, but it's around 3,700 ft gain according to Gaia. There are some blow downs, overgrown sections, and one spot where a blow down goes directly over a creek and it's very challenging to go under it without getting wet. Still, we managed. There is quite a bit of snow before the lake, with some sketchy snow bridges that we collapsed around the edges of trees. Unfortunately we had to turn around like 200 ft before the lake because there was really slippery piles of snow at a diagonal angle that I didn't think would be safe to navigate in trail runners without spikes (my friend forgot to bring her spikes). I think there will be snow for several more weeks, weather dependent. We passed by only 2 hikers on this section, and they said they had to camp on snow at the lake because none of the camp sites were melted out. There was a camp about a mile or so before the lake that was melted out (it's not on Gaia, but there was a sign saying last campsite where you can have a fire). This campsite had good water sources.

Overall a fun trip, though most people might want to give it a few weeks to deal with less snow! Especially if you're wanting to get out to the glacier.