I did not plan on doing our second Bailey Range Traverse only two days after climbing Mount Rainier, but weather had forced me to reschedule my Emmons summit from the weekend before. So less than 48 hours after arriving home from a successful Rainier summit, I was packing again and heading back out for a 5 day excursion. After last year’s Bailey Range Traverse (from the Sol Duc TH through the Queets Basin and out to the North Fork Quinault River TH), Lucas and I agreed to do it again this year but in the opposite direction and including a summit of Mount Olympus. We were joined by Alex, a strong climber who gave us a third person for the rope team and would later lead the Olympus summit block.
Our plan was to start from the Hoh River TH, spend night 1 at the Glacier Meadows camp, summit Olympus on day 2, continue on to Camp Pan for the second night, traverse east to Bear Pass then north up the Baileys to Ferry Basin for night 3, then up and around to Boston Charlie’s camp right before the Catwalk for night 4, finishing out to the Sol Duc TH at the end of day 5. An aggressive itinerary, but one we knew was doable from last year, especially since we’d be revisiting half the journey and we were adding a third strong climber with us.
Day 0 - Car shuttle and Bear Creek
The adventure started with a reminder that logistics are part of the climb: it took me almost six hours to reach Sol Duc thanks to a 90-minute Mukilteo ferry wait. Note to self: don’t do that again. I finally arrived around 9pm, left my car at Sol Duc, and then we drove to Bear Creek campground outside the park where we did a Wed night car camp so we could do an early start on Thursday morning. It still took us an hour to drive to the Hoh River TH so we ended up getting an 8am start by the time all was said and done.
Day 1 - Hoh River Trailhead to Glacier Meadows
The trail in was beautiful and a mostly flat stroll for the first 13 miles or so before ascending about 4100’ over the last 4-5 miles to camp. We were reminded then that we were carrying not just an extra day’s food but trad climbing gear, 60m rope, harnesses + glacier travel and rescue kit, etc. . It was a long but pretty straightforward day with the only real exception being the descent down the rope ladder and back up a gully where the trail is washed out. It was actually nice to get a tiny bit of spice in right at the end.
The Glacier Meadows camp is gorgeous. Lots of beautiful tent sites tucked in amongst the trees, two emergency Adirondack shelters in great shape, even a practically new privy, all right next to a bubbling stream makes this a fantastic place to camp. We arrived at about 6:30pm, set up camp, ate, and relaxed for a few hours before heading off to sleep.
Day 2 - Mount Olympus and Camp Pan
We had originally planned to wake up at 4am for a 4:30am summit day start, but decided to slide that back a bit. We didn’t particularly want to hike in the dark, and with the long June daylight we knew we had plenty of usable time. We left around 5:30am.
The route starts on trail and then quickly climbs through a rocky basin to the Blue Glacier moraine, which was exactly what you would expect: a messy descent down onto the glacier. Lucas and Alex discovered the rock glissade, after watching that I chose a slightly longer but less painful route down. Once we got down, we crossed the Blue Glacier and began the climb up toward Snow Dome.
We had a big decision to make before we ascended - do we stash all our overnight stuff, make the summit with light packs, then return back to continue on, or carry 50 lb packs up all the way to the base of the summit block so we have the option of crossing over down to the south then through Olympus Middle and East Peaks directly onto the Hoh Glacier instead of going all the way back down the way we came from the direct route back up the Blue Glacier to Glacier Pass. We decided to keep the packs so we had the option.
That meant a very long, slow slog up to Snow Dome and then across to the North face - fortunately there was a snow bridge allowing us access to the direct route. A few other parties had beaten us there that day and fortunately were just coming off as we arrived at the base around 1pm so we didn’t have to wait long to get our climb started. Alex led the summit block with trad gear and Lucas and I followed, finally reaching summit around 1:53pm.
We scoped out the routes and decided that we just didn’t want to risk our possible shortcut as what we could see had large crevasses in the way and what we couldn’t see - well, we couldn’t see and just didn’t want to risk getting stranded that late in the day or having a long workaround. We rappelled down about half hour later and then began the long trek back down and then up to Glacier Pass. Note to self - next time, leave the extra 35 lbs at the base lol.
We descended a steep snow and rock route onto then traversed the Hoh Glacier, and ended with some fun class 2-4 scrambling up to Camp Pan around 8:30pm. Almost a 15 hour day but incredibly beautiful and such a variety of terrain to cross!
Camp Pan may be the most spectacular campsite I have ever stayed at. I set my tent on a ledge overlooking the Hoh Glacier and Olympus, and it felt like being on another planet. Not easy to get to, but absolutely incredible.
Day 3 - Camp Pan toward Ferry Basin
We woke up to the same gorgeous view - and I woke up with a very sore back. My sleeping pad had developed a slow leak during the night. Not enough that I could find the hole, but enough that it slowly deflated while I was trying to sleep and left me lying on bare rock. Not exactly how I planned to spend three of my next four nights.
We only planned on doing about 8-9 miles on day 3 so we slept in a bit and set off at 7:30. Boy did we underestimate the amount of route finding and the technical challenges of navigating the terrain, in spite of our prior experience. So many snow/rock transitions, areas we expected snow but were bare so we had to resort to much slower travel through choss and scrambles, lots of having to move to plan b or c to make our next objective. The terrain never looked huge on the map, but every small section demanded attention.
So instead of getting to a nice comfy campsite at Ferry Basin, by around 8pm we decided we needed to stop on a rocky ridge a little less than a mile north of Bear Pass, almost three miles short of our intended goal.
It was not the day we planned, but it was the right decision. We had a workable camp, enough daylight to get settled, and no reason to keep forcing progress into increasingly uncertain terrain.
Day 4 - Ferry Basin, Cream Lake, and the bushwhack from hell
The following morning however we started out in high spirits as Lucas and I had done this all before the year before and recognized everything, meaning vastly less route finding time. Plus we had a fun time pointing out to each other all the places we knew. We had a great time navigating down to Ferry Basin (although it was dramatic how little snow there was), and then through to Cream Lake.
We knew it was just a 700’ gain straight up through some really crappy bushwhacking but once we got up we knew we’d have a traverse bootpath we could follow along the mountainside that we had done before all the way to either Eleven Bull or ideally even our original goal of Boston Charlie’s camp. However while we managed to get up more easily than we got down last year, it turned out we pretty much couldn’t find a working path to traverse and it became perhaps the worst slog of the entire trip, constantly running into cliffs, gullies, and chasms that forced us to ascend or descend significantly to get around. We suspect that because of the early melt out vegetation had grown up to completely obscure what we traveled before. It also created a perfect home for clouds of mosquitoes (or maybe they followed us from Cream Lake - they never left us).
More importantly, we also discovered that none of the streams or creeks we had from the previous year existing since the snow was already all melted so we had no water source from Cream Lake until we finally got to just before Eleven Bull. While we had started with a few liters each after the lake, the strenuous climb and constant bushwhacking had us consume it long before we found more and had to continue for hours with none. We finally came upon a small patch of unmelted snow in a shallow gulley which was exactly what we needed and probably the thing that let us keep going safely - not that we had much choice at that point.
But we still had miles to make up and our speed was abysmal. It was getting dark and almost 10pm before we finally found a spot flatish enough that we could pitch a tent and hopefully not roll off the mountain for camp 4 - we could see Eleven Bull from there but it was just too late to keep pushing.
Day 5 - Andrew’s Gully of Doom, Catwalk, and Sol Duc
In the morning we broke camp, crossed over to Eleven Bull, then finally picked up the clear trail that we knew! From there we knew it was a straight shot over to Boston Charlie’s, then across the Catwalk, then some more traverse on a well beaten path until we hit some actual trails and cruised out.
Unfortunately we had to cross what Lucas now calls Andrew’s Gully of Doom. It is a very steep gully (in the already very steep mountainside) with one side made of hard-packed but very slippery dirt. The problem is that the dirt is not loose enough to kick steps into or get reliable purchase, but the top layer slips off easily and takes you with it. Which is exactly what happened to me last year. Last year, though, the gully was full of snow. I slipped, fell onto the snow, self-arrested, and scrambled out the other side. This time it was just… rocks. And yes, after Alex and Lucas successfully scrambled across, I was almost there and my foothold gave out, then my other foothold, then my handholds, and I slipped along with the dirt and loose rocks and fell again down the side and into the gully itself 30’ below. But this time onto the nice pointy rocks. Ouch.
Frustrated, I climbed back up the middle to the traverse and tried again - and fell again, this time farther. At this point we all agreed it wasn’t going well and we needed a different plan to get me out. Lucas and Alex were able to access a tree to belay me up to the edge (I guess hauling that rope and climbing kit the extra 35 miles ended up being useful after all). Fortunately I didn’t break anything (honestly I was kinda surprised) but I collected plenty of cuts, bruises, and wounded pride since other than that incident, scrambling was one of my biggest strengths.
After that it was smooth sailing. The Catwalk was as airy and fun scramble as we remembered, and once we were past that it was almost a cruise the rest of the way. I was pretty slow on the uphill to High Divide after my falls and bed-o-rocks, but I got my typical end of trip burst of energy for the last few miles and I think I literally ran the last 1/2 mile to the TH.
We did note that there was no pond left at Boston Charlie’s and just a small brackish pond at the eastern end of the Catwalk - we didn’t find water again until we got all the way to Heart Lake. Take care hikers if you do this traverse - unless you are very high where you can still access the little snow that is left and melt, there are a lot fewer options for water on the north part of the traverse than there usually are.
We finally finished the 14 mile day at about 6pm with much rejoicing. And no-longer-cold beers from the cooler in my car . Apologies to the day hikers we may have scared with some wolf howls at the exit.
An amazing trip but definitely plan on long days if you want to do it in 4 nights.
