Crown jewel of the Olympic Mountains, that requries a super long approach and both glacier and rock climb finish.
From Glacier Meadows, ascend to the lateral moraine. You will start descending the moraine when you see a bush and two piles of large cairns. The lateral moraine descent isn't as bad as many trip reports say. It is just average off trail loose stuff, the kind commonly found on peakbagger trips.
Once on the Blue Glacier, rope up and walk toward the entrance of the Snow Dome. At night it is hard to see the direction, so following GPS is probably ideal. Then ascend the Snow Dome, first on rock and then on snow. We did the whole section with crampons on, but the rock portion isn't pleasant. Because the direct Fourth of July route is still open, the route to the summit block is straightforward once you are on snow dome.
At the summit block, we found no moat problem, but the icy snow made for a tricky transition to the rock. We couldn't pound a picket in at all, so we built a ground anchor with two ice screws for protection. I led the 5.4 rock route, and I think the rating is accurate. Please rappel on the back side of the summit block (a 60 meter rope is required) so the next party can climb while you are rappelling.
We used the first two days to approach Glacier Meadows, with a night at Lewis Meadows, considering the long drive from Seattle. Even doing it in three days, we probably still would have needed to camp at the trailhead the night before. Heavy packs with glacier gear, rock gear, and this year's newly required bear can made the approach slow. We were super glad we took two days on the approach, which made it easier to get out of bed for the alpine start on day three.
After hearing from someone the day before that they waited two hours at the summit block, we decided to start from camp at 1 am. There is a good trail all the way to the descent of the lateral moraine. Olympus is so beautiful under the clear sky and stars. The start of the moraine descent is well marked with two large cairns. The descent isn't bad by peakbagging standards, about average for a Smoot or Bulger peak. Quickly we arrived at the edge of the Blue Glacier.
We roped up at the glacier and kept moving. In the dark I had a hard time knowing where I was going, so we relied heavily on GPS to lead us to the entrance of the Snow Dome. The Blue Glacier is almost bare ice all the way, with grooves and small to medium crevasses. Unluckily I fell into a crevasse on the Blue Glacier when a snow bridge collapsed. Everything below my chest was hanging in the air below the snow. I wasn't able to get myself out because my crampons couldn't bite into anything. I only managed to push myself up with my partner pulling on my backpack, once my crampons finally bit on something under the snow. Anyway, our ascent continued after I got out.
At the entrance of the Snow Dome, the route transitions to rock. We continued with our crampons on, which was not pleasant on some slabs but still doable. The rock section was short when we did it. After that, the route was clear all the way to the summit block. The direct route is in good condition and should stay in for some time.
We were the first party at the summit block, and we immediately looked for options for a ground anchor. I asked Pav to pound in a picket, but she reported that the snow was too icy to get any purchase. We then used two ice screws to build a belay station and hoped for the best.
Even though we didn't have any moat, the crux was still the transition from icy snow to rock. I am more comfortable leading in rock shoes, but it was way too slippery to start from the snow and ice in them. So I carried the rock shoes, climbed 4th class in mountaineering boots to a pocket in the rock, changed shoes there, then clipped my mountaineering boots to the rope and slid them back down to the belayer. The climb itself felt right at 5.4 to me. According to my followers, it might feel a little harder in mountaineering boots because of the small footholds in the 5th class part, but the handholds are always good and big. I trailed two strands of a 60 meter rope and had about 1 meter left when I arrived at the anchor.
We rappelled on the other side of the summit block to avoid congestion, and it worked pretty well. The descent was also uneventful. A lovely day out there!
We packed up and started from the Glacier Meadows camp at 7:30 am. We went down much faster than we came up, partly due to our lighter packs and our eagerness to get back to civilization. It still took us 8 hours and 40 minutes to get back. We were tired and our shoulders were sore, but we are glad we never need to come back to do Mount Olympus again!
