It’s Memorial day weekend in the Pacific Northwest and we’re finally out hiking again. For our first backpacking trip since thru hiking the Appalachian Trail, we’ve chosen a 2 night, 2.5 day, 36 mile round trip hike up the Hoh River Trail up to the Blue Glacier which lies on the north side of Mount Olympus in the Olympic National Park.
We arrived at the tail head nice and early, around 8am. We’ve got an America the beautiful pass, which gets us access to national parks and forests without paying an additional parking fee. Without it, it would cost $20/ night to park. Before starting the hike, we had to fill out our backcountry permit… which ended up costing an additional $32 ($8 pp/night).
Enough with financials and on to the good stuff. We’ve been having a nice stretch of great weather out here in Washington, and today was no different. We thought it might be a little cooler as we headed up the valley, but the sun warmed everything up.
The Hoh River Trail begins at the Hoh Rainforest visitor center. Yes, I said rainforest. The Hoh Rainforest is one of the temperate rainforests out on the Olympic Peninsula. As the tail generally follows the river valley, it’s a very gradual climb…. mostly flat path meandering through the lush, mossy, emerald green rainforest. It felt good to get our (brand new!) packs on, and be walking through the woods again. It was especially nice that it was an easy trail.
We paused briefly for lunch at the Olympus ranger station about 9.6 miles in. We’re back to tuna packets and a block of cheddar cheese. We really didn’t stop for long, mainly because after lunch we only had a quick 1.4 miles to our campsite for the night… Lewis Meadows.
We arrived at our campsite very early in the day… something like 1pm. When we first arrived we were treated to the sight of a young buck relaxing in between two tents under a tree. He didn’t seem to mind us passing by as he continued to chew on whatever he was eating.
We took a bit of time deciding where to set up camp. We wandered around the meadow, and even set up fully under a tree. We took a walk to the river and quickly realized that there were better options for camping since we’d be hanging out all afternoon and evening.
We had to pretty much fully tear down camp to move, but it was completely worth it. We’re right by the river with a breathtaking view of the snow capped mountains to the east. We spent the afternoon relaxing in the sun, enjoying our serene setting. Bear Bell even brought along our hammock, which she ended up napping in.
Dinner was a couple of Mountain House meals (because we wanted to be lazy on this trip) accompanied by some river-cooled cans of Ghostfish beer. Ghostfish is a brewery in Seattle that specializes in gluten free beers. Honestly, it was a bit of an accident that we got gluten free beer, but man oh man was it good. Nice, bright, and holly with some grapefruit flavors. I honestly wouldn’t have known it was gluten free beer if it didn’t say it right on the can.
We were in the tent by 8pm, though it was still very light out. The sun doesn’t fully go down until after 9pm now. I’m hoping to wake up tonight to see some stars, as the sky was still cloudless as we got into the tent. Tomorrow we get back into some uphill climbing, and hopefully get a glimpse of the Blue Glacier.
Glad to hear you’ve settled in out there and psyched to see some new updates from the trail ???? I can’t wait to come visit and do some hiking!