4 Day/3-Night Climb of Mt. Olympus.

Day 1: Hoh River TH to Elk Lake
Day 2: Elk Lake to Caltech Rocks high camp
Day 3: Caltech Rocks to summit of Olympus, and back to Elk Lake
Day 4: Elk Lake to Hoh River TH

PERMITS required for stays in the Olympic National Park backcountry. They are reservable online (https://www.recreation.gov/permits/4098362/), and the rangers will email you your permit a day or two before your start date.

I made an initial reservation for Glacier Meadows for the second night, and was able to email the rangers to change it to Caltech Rocks, as the area is not a reservable option on the website.

ROAD: Suitable for any vehicle. The crux is getting there early enough to find a parking spot. The main lot filled up by 8 a.m. (even on a Monday), and our friends had to park down the street a bit from the trailhead when they arrived at 8.30 a.m.

There were several bathrooms in the area, but one of them had run out of toilet paper when I used it. 

HOH RIVER TH to ELK LAKE:
16+ miles through forest. The trail was generally in great shape.

We opted to wade the knee-deep water crossing at about 7.8 miles in (prior reports show a log option though).

A couple of the streams that we hoped to filter water at were dry after that (namely Hoh Creek and Slide Creek). We eventually got water from the Hoh River itself, and there were water sources on trail again after that. We filled up for the night at Martin Creek before reaching our camp at Elk Lake.

It was a relief to get to camp after hauling over 45-lb packs for over 16 miles! The uphill stretch at the end of the day was definitely a booty-kicker.

Sadly, the toilet at Elk Lake was full and closed off. 😢

ELK LAKE TO CALTECH ROCKS:
We continued the uphill climb to Glacier Meadows the next morning, where thankfully the outhouses were open (two of them, even!).

We took the ladder before Glacier Meadows one at a time. We just went slow and it was fine, but definitely not designed for short legs - I had to match each rung with both feet. 

We broke out of treeline shortly after the camping area, and made the steep rocky slog to the Blue Glacier overlook. There was running water for a while by the trail, but that petered out before we reached the overlook. 

The moraine descent was loose and steep, but we were able to follow a cairned bootpath down to the edge of the glacier. We roped up here.

The lower Blue Glacier was bare ice. There was plenty of running water on the glacier itself - magical blue pools and streams, gurgling crevasses and deep aqua fissures where you could peer down into the unending depths. 

We crossed the glacier diagonally and wrapped around northwards to work our way up to the bivy sites at Caltech Rocks. It took us a while to figure out where the camping area was, and we transitioned a bit unnecessarily between snow and rock a few times, but eventually found some nice sites at 47.81640, -123.69496.

We were able to fit a 3p tent in the largest site and a small 2p. in another, and there were a few other small sites.

There was running water close to camp.

OLYMPUS SUMMIT:
We left camp at 4 a.m.. The first order of the day was heading up some steep snow (much thanks to our leader for kicking steps) to get up to the mellower Snow Dome area.

From there, it was a gentle walk across the Blue Glacier where we eventually picked up a boot path that took us over Crystal Pass (just a little bit of dirt to cross here). The route was in good shape, and it was pretty straightforward to get around any crevasses.

There were thousands of glacier/ice worms out on the surface of the glacier before sunrise, which was pretty cool to see!

We made a rising traverse on the side of the ridge to end up at a loose, rocky gully that took us up, over and down another rocky gully to the final steep snow slope that brought us right to the base of the summit block (easy snow-rock transition, yay!). 

We opted for the North Face 5.4 route. My partner led the climb (used 3 cams, no nuts...and he loves nuts, so if he didn't use them, I'd say don't bring them). We had twin 30m ropes, so he led on both of them at the same time. They were barely long enough, and I had to scramble up to a ledge above my initial belay spot to allow him to get to the anchor. Thankfully it worked out.

He belayed the remaining three of us up and we made the short scramble to the summit, where there was room to relax for a while and enjoy the Olympic views.

The rappel went smoothly. We decided to re-rope up on the other side of the rocky scramble. From there, we made the descent back to camp (we made a detour to some buildings on Snow Dome in hopes of finding a random toilet there, but didn't succeed in our search). 

DESCENT TO ELK LAKE:
We packed up camp and headed back down and across the glacier in the afternoon. Climbing back up the moraine felt like way more of a slog than I remembered the descent being! Same with the ladder - heading up that thing with a full pack was actually quite exhausting. 😅

We stocked up on water at a nice stream about .6 miles before the Elk Lake campground turnoff.

We arrived into Elk Lake fairly late in the evening (past 7 pm) and we were very surprised at how busy the camping area was. It was actually so full that we couldn't find a spot for our two tents, and after some stressed searching around, we ended up setting up in the group site.

My anxiety kept me awake for a bit as I lay there and worried that an irate group was going to storm in at midnight and demand that we move, but thankfully no one showed up, and we spent the night in peace.

EXIT TO HOH RIVER TRAILHEAD:
We packed up and hit the trail shortly after 8 a.m. the next morning. Thankfully the way out was much more tolerable than the approach had been, and we made good time, getting the 16 miles done in under 6 hours (with a stop at Lewis Meadows to use the toilets). 

MOSQUITOES:
Not bad on trail at all. They would find us eventually when we stopped. The bugs were worst at camp at Elk Lake and were pretty annoying there. There were some skeeters at high camp as well, mostly in the evening. Not the worst skeeter trip I've been on though!

WANT MORE PHOTOS?
Follow along on instagram @thenomadicartist for all the adventures!

Quick and dirty beta for my fellow peak baggers:

7-16-25

Hoh River TH is the start. The line to get into the parking lot takes hours during the summer, show up early.

Day 1: 11 miles and 1k gain to Lewis Meadows.

Day 2: 7 miles and 3.5k gain to Glacier Meadows.

Day 3: 0230 start to beat the heat. Summit day. I placed #0.5, #0.75, #1, and #2 on the summit lead climb. It was cruiser (and a fun lead). Crevasse risk is currently minimal. Back to Glacier Meadows for dinner and rest.

**Note: Fourth of July route is out as of 7-14-25. Must use Crystal Pass. It’s a glorious alternate route anyway.

Day 4: 18 mi strut back to Hoh River TH. Even more beautiful on the way out. Take it all in while you can. It goes fast. Left 0630 and back at 1330. Feel free to reach out w questions 

3-day trip out to blue glacier. Day 1 we did 10 miles to Lewis Meadows, day 2 17ish miles out and back to blue glacier with day packs, and then out 10 miles again on day 3.

TLDR: Current trail conditions are good, river crossings can be done without getting your feet wet, rope ladder isn't that bad, trail at the end disappears (but don't give up!), no snow crossings required. Hardest part of the 17 mile roundtrip is just the distance and time; took us ~10 hours and it's a quad killer!

River crossings: There is a river crossing around 7.5 miles which you can either use water shoes for (~1ft deep), or follow a side trail up to a log crossing (we used the second log, which looked much easier to cross). There is a log jam crossing shortly after that can be easily crossed as well.

Rope ladder: The rope ladder isn't too bad - we brought gloves as well, which were helpful. It's a little scarier on the way down (you descend the ladder on your way up to the glacier), but a little more physically taxing on the way back up. Beware there are a couple of broken rungs now, but you can easily just plant a foot in the cliffside. Just go slow. Be aware you may have to wait for others using the ladder.

Trail finding: Near the top, the trail disappears in a talus field. Most folks were following the talus field farther up to the left, then cutting up to the ridge that gives you the view of the glacier. You can alternatively just cut straight up to the right, hitting the ridge earlier, which is a little steeper but saves some time. Amazing views of the glacier and surrounding peaks. There are a few snow patches still but they can be easily avoided.

Timing: Total trip took us about 10 hours, from 9am-7pm. We left at 8:45am and it took us 5.5 hours to get to the top from Lewis Meadows. We ate lunch and hung out for around 45min. It took us ~4 hours to descend back to camp.

Camping: Lewis Meadow has tons of great camping spots, both around the meadow and along the river. The two bear wires were a little difficult to use once multiple people had hung gear on them, and one wire was quite frayed. I would probably just bring a bear can next time. Also, the outhouse was probably <1 week away from filling up.

Arrival: Be aware of long lines to get into the Hoh Rainforest. We drove in the night before and camped (with reservation) before departing on our journey the following morning in order to avoid this. When we left on Saturday, we passed an hour+ long line of cars waiting to get in still.

Set out for Blue Glacier on Tuesday morning, 7/8/25. Arrived to the parking lot around 10:00am, was surprised at how many people there were! Get to this lot as early as possible if you want to find a spot. The park rangers make you wait until a car leaves the lot if it is full.

There is a stream crossing that we put water shoes on for, maybe around 7.5-8 miles from the parking lot. We camped at Elk “Lake” on night one, which is more like a pond. Signs say it is 15 miles in, but our mileage was closer to 16.5. There isn’t great water at Elk Lake, so make sure to fill up at Martin Creek about a half mile before the lake.

Day 2 we set out for the glacier. 3 in our group went ahead and one chose to stay back at the ladder. The ladder is longer than we all expected, so be prepared and take it slow. I couldn’t imagine doing this with a heavy pack. The meadows on the way to the glacier are beautiful. We camped at Lewis Meadows on night 2 after breaking camp at Elk Lake. Lewis Meadows has great spots along the river that are farther off the trail.

We hiked out to the car on day 3. Be warned that there are no snacks at the visitor center! I was really over my backpacking food and wanted to grab a snack, but alas…

Overall a great trip and wonderful trail!

LYME DISEASE. 

Trail was beautiful and I’d recommend it to anyone in suitable physical shape. I hiked with two friends and unfortunately one of them was bitten by a tick and contracted Lyme disease. Be cautious and prepared to avoid ticks. This is an extremely rare occurrence in this area - we were told by rangers that it’s not an issue (after encountering the tick and checking in at the station post hike) and we were not cautious enough as we have never been concerned by ticks when hiking in WA. 

This hike is absolutely worth it - just want to be sure people are keeping an eye out and aware of the risk.