Day 1 - Hoh River trailhead to Olympus Guard Station (9.1 miles)

Day 2 - Camp at Martin Creek (~mile 14.7) (~5.6 miles) (we planned to day hike to Glacier Meadows this day but were too tired)

Day 3 - Day hike to Blue Glacier (but we stopped at the rope ladder) (~4.6 round trip), then hike down to Happy Four (mile 5.7) (9 miles, 13.6 total)

Day 4 - Hike out from Happy Four (5.7 miles)

This was a last-minute trip for us so we did the planning quickly and were really grateful we were able to get permits with like 24 hours' notice. Huge thanks to WTA for being such a good resource! I hiked this with my partner; we're both in our 30s, in decent shape but not hiking regularly.

I had read that Lewis Meadow - Blue Glacier day hike was really challenging so (in addition to be limited by which permits were available) we decided to backpack up to Martin Creek and then day hike to Blue Glacier. However, I wouldn't necessarily recommend this itinerary; if we do it again, I'd probably try out camping at Lewis Meadow and doing the long day hike rather than packing up the steep slope.

Day 1 - The path was pretty flat, smooth, and this part was easier than expected. There was a 1.5 hour line to get into the park and so we didn't get on the trail until 1pm or so. (Take seriously the suggestion on the website to arrive before 10am!) It took us about 5 hours to hike the 9 miles to Olympus Guard station. We camped on the gravel bar and it was super gorgeous.

Day 2 - After Lewis Meadow, the trail started going up steeply! Although the mileage wasn't super long, we found packing up to Martin Creek quite challenging and weren't up for the additional day hike, which made Day 3 an epic day. Martin Creek has some nice camps up along the creek and only one permit per night, which meant it was sweet and quiet. Nice swimming holes to dip in. Someone had left toilet paper around which we picked up.

Day 3 - We woke up at 5:30am and day hiked with small packs 2 miles up to the rope ladder, but found it a little scary and so we turned around there. Nonetheless there were great views of Mount Olympus. We then backpacked down from Martin Creek to Happy Four which made it a very long day - we got to camp around 8pm.

Day 4 - The hike out was pretty flat and easy, took us about 4 hours at a leisurely pace. There are nice swimming spots/river access along the way. 

The thimbleberries, huckleberries, and blueberries were amazing; dipping in the river and creeks was awesome. I hadn't hiked in the Olympic National Park for years and I appreciated the permit system: that there were last-minute permits available and that it limited the number of folks in the wilderness while creating lots of access. It still felt like lots of people compared to more remote places I've backpacked, but I really appreciate the ways the park is balancing access and maintaining wilderness. People were very friendly and helpful on the trail (although I wish someone had told us about the rope ladder, as we were surprised.) We had a great trip and I'd highly recommend this for experienced backpackers!

For reference - here's some of the mileages (listed on the sign at the start of the trail):

Tom Creek 2.9

Happy Four Shelter 5.7

Olympus Guard 9.1

Elk Lake 15.1

Glacier Meadows 17.3

Length: 5 days, 4 nights

Party Size: 10

Weather: Sunny mid-high 70s for the first two and a half days, Cloudy 60s-70s the last two.

Campsites: Lewis Meadows, Glacier Meadows (2 nights), Olympic Guard Station

Day 1: Arrived at the gate about 5 minutes before 9 am and the line was fast (<10 cars in front). Flat hike out to Lewis Meadows. Pretty smooth but took our large party about 5-6 hours with a lot of stops. Only annoyance were these biting flies swarming us near the first stream crossing while we changed shoes.

Lewis Meadows campground was nice, only a few small issues- compost toilet was out of order, bear wire had already been used up (thankfully we had a rope with us), and the crows are pretty food aggressive.

Day 2: Broke camp pretty late around 10-11am to begin the steady hike up to Glacier Meadows. The first hour is flat and GORGEOUS, maybe my favorite part of the forest portion. The following elevation gain was physically tough for half our group but everyone managed.

We stopped for a break and water refill at Martin Creek which was incredibly beautiful. I could have stayed there all day.

The ladder with a pack is not as scary as many reports here may lead you to believe. For context I’m a small female (5’2, 125lbs) and it was passable with a ~37lb pack (I know that’s too heavy lol). The other portion going up is also challenging with the rock scree and I was glad to have gloves.

Glacier Meadows was lovely, two open toilets, some deer, and plenty of bear wire. I also welcomed the chillier temps.

Day 3: Somewhat of a rest day, we hiked the rest of the way up to Blue Glacier to the lateral moraine which is mostly a rock scramble/talus field. The view is absolutely worth it. Make sure to bring sunscreen or some type of sun protective clothing for the exposure.  

Day 4: Hiked back out and down to Olympic Guard station. This felt very fast and we were all glad to have lighter packs and cloud cover. It was also nice to have time to appreciate portions where I was too winded to look up the previous day. OGS campground was great, we camped by the river and enjoyed some amazing views for our last night.

Day 5: Easy 9 mile flat hike out, took us about 4 hours and thankfully there were no biting flies at the stream crossing this time. We think they prefer sunnier temps. 

Overall 10/10 experience, highly recommend. Could definitely be done in less nights but I’m glad we had more time to take it in. Our group is not very experienced and we had a few first timers but everyone loved it.

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!

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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.