Mount Olympus - Blue Glacier Route

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Our crew consisted of four mid- to late-twenties males that are amateur mountaineers and rock climbers. We are all in quite good shape, but we are not in prime mountaineering condition. Day 1 - July 26: Hiked to glacier meadows camp from the Hoh River Trailhead. Departed at 1000 and arrived around 1900. We traveled light in terms of water, but heavy with food and gear. Next time we might break this approach into two days. Day 2 - July 27: Departed glacier meadows at 0440 and hiked to the top of the lateral moraine. Descended the lateral moraine following small cairns. The rock was loose, but not as loose as the volcanic rock found on many peaks in central Oregon. We arrived at the base of the moraine at ~0645 and roped up to cross blue glacier. We broke our crew into two teams of two for glacier travel. Most gpx routes take a straight path across the glacier in a southwest direction, but we proceeded in a more arced route to the south so we could avoid the large runoff streams coursing across the lower part of the glacier. We then proceeded up the west lateral moraine (on snow) and arrived at the top of the snow dome at 0935. Following a bootpack of previous crews we threaded our way through some large crevasses on our way to Crystal Pass. We used the easternmost snow bridge to cross over the last visible crevasse to reach Crystal pass on our ascent. We crossed over the pass, then traversed behind (immediately south of) Five Fingers Ridge, and arrived on the false summit at high noon. To gain the summit it seemed we had three main options: 1) ascend the east ridge, 2) traverse around (or cross) the bergschrund on the north face and scramble the west ridge, 3) cross the bergschrund on the north ridge and climb the north ridge. Traversing around the bergschrund included traversing a steep slope (>35 degrees), with an unstopped fall resulting in dropping into large crevasses below, and we did not have the gear or expereince to ascend the north ridge safely, so we opted to ascend the east ridge, a mostly class 4 scramble with one (or two) class 5 sections. We used slings and our ropes to belay our team on the down-climb. By the time we had returned to the false summit, and were geared up to begin our slog down, it was 1640. A more experienced trad team could easily cut two hours off the time it took for our team to ascend and descend the summit block. We took the same route back to glacier meadows that we ascended, only crossing the crevasse below crystal pass on a more secure-looking snow bridge farther west. We reached the top of the snow dome at 1735, the west side of blue glacier at ~1815, and arrived back at glacier meadows camp at 2040. The snow was quite soft throughout the climb since temps had been above freezing for sometime. The snow did soften up throughout the day as temps increased and the sun beat down, but some areas were had stiffened up by the time we were descending. The skies were very clear, temps were in the 50s and 60s, with the occasional breeze. We saw a SAR helicopter flying around throughout the day, perhaps doing training missions...it was very cool to see.  Day 3 - July 28: We departed glacier meadows at ~0840 and hiked out to the Hoh River Trailhead, arriving at ~1700.