I couldn’t resist more photos of avalanche lilies (or white fawn lilies?) in the morning sun.

Hiking along the High Divide. It took us a few moments to remember what a real trail looked like! I had expected to see some people, but we didn’t see anyone until we got down to the North Fork of the Hoh – there was a lot of snow on the High Divide, which probably kept people away.

The blow downs also kept people away from the High Divide. So much for an easy 19 miles on trail!

I had someone ask how we got back to our car we had left a the trailhead on the South Fork of the Hoh. Although the trailheads for the North Fork (where we came out) and South Fork (where we began) are actually only about 6 miles apart, there is a big ridge between them, and the shortest drive takes you all the way out to HWY 101 so you can access the road in the other Fork. So we had to find someone willing to drive us from the trailhead at the North Fork (which is about 20 miles from HWY 101) to the trailhead at the South Fork (which is about 20 miles from HWY 101 along a different road). Fortunately, we didn’t have to wait around long before we ran into a friendly artist from San Francisco and his elderly dad, who were willing to load 2 smelly backpackers into their station wagon and drive up the South Fork. Thanks guys!!

During our trip, we essentially circled around Mount Olympus. I have put together a series of photos that shows Mount Olympus from various angles during our trip.

Labeled panorama of Olympus as seen from the Bailey Range/High Divide, Day 7.

Our first views of Olympus as the ridge to the east of Valkyrie Creek finally broke open, Day 3.	Olympus from the summit of Frigga in the Valhallas, Day 3.	Looking towards the summit from our camp at the base of the Hubert Glacier, Day 4.	Looking back at the Olympus Massive we had climbed the day before; from the south end of the Bailey Range near Bear Pass, Day 6.	Mt. Olympus from ridge along the Bailey Range just south of Snagtooth (Mt. Pulitzer), Day 6.
Morning sun on Olympus from our camp midway through the Bailey Range, Day 7.	From the northern Bailey Range, Day 7.	From east end of High Divide, Day 7.	Our last views of Olympus before we dropped into the trees at the west end of High Divide, Day 8.

I discovered that my pack wasn’t heavy enough, so I collected some rocks during the trip:

To pass the time while bushwhacking, Doug and I made up the following laws....

1. The coolest rock is always the heaviest and you always find it the first day of the trip.
2. The brush is always thinner along the other side of the South Fork of the Hoh.
3. The edges of the map always lie along the line of travel.
4. A jacket’s zipper will only get stuck when it begins to rain.
5. If you set up the tent, it won’t rain. If you don’t set it up, it will.
6. Wildlife only appear when you have put your camera away.
7. Crampons and shoelaces will come undone at the worst possible moment.
8. The weather is always the nicest on the last day of the trip (although this was not true in our case, since besides for one day we had beautiful weather the whole time).

A few weeks after Doug's and my Olympics adventure described on this page, another hiker (Brent) embarked upon the rarely-traveled section of the route between Camp Pan and Bear Pass. With a lot of the snow that had simplified the traverse for us now melted away, he encountered some difficulties. I thought an excerpt from Brent's email (which was directed to the Olympic Mtn Climbing guide webmaster and passed on to me) would be a valuable addition to my trip report, especially for anyone considering doing this route in earlier versus later season. He writes:

"...Interestingly, and unbeknownst to either party at the time, I soloed this route about 3 weeks after miss Abegg's traverse with her climbing partner. I had been eyeballing the route for many years, ever since working as a climbing ranger for the NPS on Mount Olympus. Her comment that "(Note that mid- to late-summer might present unforeseen route-finding challenges)"  is certainly correct, as I encountered both steep, hard glacier ice and steep, scrabbly shale where they likely had good snow cover.
 
Briefly, the route was from Dodwell Rixon Pass east-->west to the Hoh Glacier, traversing the glaciers and cols on the north side of the ridge dividing Queets Basin from the major Hoh River north fork tributary. Once on the lower Hoh Glacier, rather than ascend over crevassed terrain unroped to Glacier Pass, I chose to descend off the bare glacier terminus, and then up a series of bench ponds, over a small scree col and down around the Ice River glacier terminus, then up over the ridge between Mercury & Peak 6351 and on down to Glacier Meadows.
 
Certainly the crux of the route was the very steep glacier finger descent to the main body of the Hoh Glacier (from the col between Ares north peak - 6270' and Aphrodite); absolutely a "no-fall" zone here - and not recommended except by those experienced on steep ice - i certainly wished for a 2nd ice tool at the time. A couple of the scree cols along the traverse were tricky as well, though these would have have been simple earlier in the season (with snow cover).
 
hope this is of interest to the high route updates. It is a spectacular traverse, and particularly amazing to be in the upper snow basins at sunrise. Unfortunately, my old SLR zoom lens chose that moment to lose its weather seal and completely fog up for hours. I wasn't carrying a backup point-and-shoot camera for this particular trip, so was unable to obtain any photographs after leaving Bear Pass the evening before.
 
sincerely,
Brent Eric Trim"