I was worried that the timing of our trip would mean that rivers were too low for packrafting and creeks would be too high for canyoning. This was true for a lot of the more interesting rivers on the Olympic Peninsula, but accounts seemed to suggest the glacier-fed Hoh River to be more resilient and allow a lower threshold for passage, if a little bumpy. At 900 cfs we decided to give it a try; at least the lower flows would be less pushy and give us more time to react to the abundant in-river wood that plagues the peninsula's whitewater runs. The plan was to hike 11 miles through the famous temperate Hoh Rainforest, establish a base camp at Lewis Meadows, day hike 15 miles for views of Blue Glacier and Mt Olympus at the park's core, then a 12.5 mile packraft back to the trailhead. Amazingly we managed to reserve the necessary backcountry permits for the 4th and 5th of July. Happily we would pass up fireworks for wilderness solitude.
The plan was for a 5:30a wakeup from Falls Creek Campground on Lake Quinault to drive 1.5 hours to get us through the Hoh Rainforest Entrance Station before the holiday crowds, but we both felt the need for a little more sleep. It felt great but I knew we would be paying for our sins. And thus it was 9:45am when we finally pulled up at the end of the entrance line...a full half-mile from the entrance kiosk, beyond the sign that said to expect a 2 hour wait for entry. Ouch!!! There is not much to report; it did take us nearly 2 hours to get into the national park, and then another 15 minutes to snag a parking spot. I thought it was particularly noteworthy that the entire day I did not hear one "happy 4th of July" but did manage to get yelled at by an irate woman. The views of the Hoh River did seem like it should have enough water for us to boat but I expected bumps and scrapes when the river decided to braid out into three or more channels. We packed very strategically given the fact that between my Hyperlite pack and canyon pack we really only had 1.5 packs to carry full packrafting gear, camping gear, and the always nuisance-y bear canister. I definitely had to make a few hard decisions to leave things behind and veto a few of Heather's items. The weight of my pack wasn't completely terrible but the round sides of the bear canister and firm top edge dug into my back uncomfortably for the whole hike. At 1pm we finally were rid of the parking lot mayhem and began our 11 mile hike to Lewis Meadows. New Zealand had clearly spoiled my notion of what a temperate rainforest should look like. Yes there were ferns and moss and green everywhere, but the forest seemed comparatively dry. Still the forest was varied and worth hiking through once. The further we went, the fewer people we saw and it did get lusher. After 2.5 miles we virtually only saw other backpackers. We got surprisingly few glimpses of the river for generally being only a few hundred feet away from it. When we did see the river the views were often not the most inspiring: undercut banks with full trees thrown into the channels and log dams.
At about 7.5 miles a new channel of the Hoh River took out the existing trail forcing us to cross and recross it. We both noted the icy brain-freeze temperatures at the first crossing and managed to find a stable log jam at the second crossing. We past the unmanned Olympus Guard Station and began our home stretch to the Lewis Meadows campsite. My favorite feature of the forest was when we would intermittently come upon a giant fallen nurse log aside the trail; some of these decayed logs had sprouted four or five great trees as big as their predecessor. We seemed to generally make good time, passing many other backpacking groups and not getting passed by any.
After about 4.5 hours we finally reached the spur trail for Lewis Meadows. The main meadow area consisted of long grass with isolated trees, each one with backpackers camping beneath. I thought I was clever in continuing on to find a camping spot next to the river but in fact there were easily three times as many people camping here. People were camped all over the access trail and so it did take us about a half hour to finally find a spot of our own, a creekside spot off the trail we cleared ourselves. There was always two or more groups a stone's throw away from us but overall this would be a suitable campsite for us to claim for two nights. I was thrilled to drop my pack and if the packrafting went well on our last day it would be the end of carrying it all. Once again mosquitoes were mercifully tame and we rehydrated our meals as more campers arrived and the population density rose. A sneaky crow made a move to steal two single-serve cheeses and a water container but only succeed in making off with a cheese. Lesson learned. After dinner I scouted the best way to get to the boatable channel of the Hoh River, which annoyingly was over a thousand feet away from our camp. The sound of the creek and comfortable temperatures made for a pleasant night's sleep.
In the morning we packed for a 15 mile round trip day hike upvalley. We initially made excellent time off the remaining river flats but then the trail began to climb towards the confluence of the Hoh River and Glacier Creek. The high bridge over the Hoh River was a surprise, giving us a drone view looking straight down at the blue waters a hundred feet below.
Onward we stopped briefly for water and a snack at Martin Creek, the only significant stream crossing on the hike. Then we passed the mucky looking Elk Lake where the trail began to climb more steeply. As we crossed the unnamed avalanche path that forms the headwaters of Elk Lake we got our first expansive views across the valley and some great wildflowers on this overgrown portion of trail. At the next drainage crossing the trail all but disappeared down to a shoe width path carved in a do-not-slip scree slope with lots of exposure. Heather was understandably unimpressed and we slowly and deliberately crossed, now with the burden of knowing we would have to repeat the maneuver on the return.
A mere 0.3 miles before Glacier Meadows and 1.5 miles from our glacier viewpoint goal, a significant surprise presented itself. We ran into a large group of about 10 people parked on the narrow trail with their backpacks off. When I asked someone what was up they said they were waiting for the ladder...and said it like I was supposed to know what that meant! Sure enough zooming in on my mapping app it did say "ladder" and have a distinct little jog in the trail. In my head I was envisioning a dread scenario of a horizontal ladder crossing a crevasse style gap but when I finally snuck to the front of the line to see what we were in for it was not quite as bad as that. A very thin and loose trail led to the top of a hundred-foot cable-and-wooden-rung ladder that went straight down an active scree slope. It was sufficiently sketchy that this was one person at a time territory to avoid getting beaned by a rock. To make matters worse there was also a line of people at the bottom wanting to come up. This was enough of a choke point and unpleasant feature that Heather was content to hang out on the trail while I tried to blitz the rest of the trail for a quick glacier view. I dropped my pack and took my camera, my phone, a small snack, and the water filter with me to continue on. I had to wait my turn probably about a half hour but then being one person without a pack I was allowed head of some other large groups. Admittedly I was without a heavy backpacking pack like everyone else but I thoroughly styled the ladder- crossing the thin trail with ease, facing straight down the hill as I lowered myself on the handline as far as it would go, and then outward crabwalking my way down the large rung ladder and past a couple broken rungs. The whole then probably took me 2 minutes compared to the more average 10 I was observing. I yelled up my thanks, all clear, and rushed on down the trail.
Glacier Meadows was rather uninteresting but as I continued onto the footpath beyond the flowers, flowing creek, and snow patches were quite nice. I decided to hike to the glacier's lateral moraine (further) instead of its terminal moraine as I determined from the topo map that the view should be better. The views of Blue Glacier and Mt Olympus were spectacular! A blue ice glacier with flow patterns and shallow crevasses led to a snow field near a dramatic pass, and then at least three distinct icefalls plunging from the summit peaks of Mt Olympus. After Mt Rainier being clouded in I was thrilled to have this unobstructed view. I could have easily lingered in this spot for hours or enjoyed a jaunt onto the glacier's snowfield but I instead rushed back to waiting Heather.
Back at the bottom of the ladder it was communicated by a group leader that there were nearly a dozen people at the bottom waiting to go up and almost as many on top waiting to come down. It would be a long wait, potentially over an hour, to go the 200 feet distance to where Heather was waiting above the ladder. I looked around and assessed the situation. It looked like countless other slips I ran into doing fieldwork in New Zealand and the left skyline slope seemed to hold intact forest. I could see the spot where I could do some root clinging to transition from the loose scree to forest and started heading down the creekbed. The guide had some cautious words to say to me but I continued on. There was no way I was waiting. Sure enough my route worked perfectly as I expected and I was at the top of the ladder looking down in about 5 minutes. It was hard not to feel a little superior at successfully working through this roadblock. Honestly it would be smarter and safer if they had a rope network through the trees instead of the temporary ladder. It took me a little over an hour to return, Heather having found someone else staying behind to chat with. Rejoined we returned back down to Lewis Meadows without incident, even if my feet began feeling a bit raw after the 4000' vertical gain and 15 miles. We had another mellow evening at camp, this time with a deer munching lazily just across our little creek.
We rallied for a fairly early start, unsure of just how many wood obstacles the Hoh River might throw at us. My guess was a portage feature about every mile and that was about right but two of the portages ended up being completely heinous. It was a little after 9am when we finally put on to the water, the building warmth of the day and relatively unsplashy riffles nicely offsetting the glacier melt waters. The best way I can summarize this 12.5 miles stretch is that the Hoh River has 99 problems, and wood is all of them. I took the cautious lead position and could boat scout most features after getting an initial feel for the river. We did end up with 12 portages, most of which were short detours around a log sieve. The river was often braided but generally we could find the deepest channel and minimize floor scraping. For 1.5 miles between Clide Creek and Happy Four Campground the river narrowed to a single deep channel with overhanging forest and no log hazards; if the entire run was like that I would have been thrilled.
Just past Five Mile Island Camp the river carved a recent northern channel through the forest that was absolutely clogged with deadly log jams. Here we painfully portaged down the river's mostly abandoned main channel for a distance of nearly a half mile. Another 1.5 miles on another terrible jam actually forced us to portage through the forest. I was unamused and my tolerance was dropping. I didn't come here to hike a boat through the forest!
We had a few more portages follow of the quick variety and thankfully no more lengthy ones. As we neared our destination we floated past a sizable herd of elk on the shores and enjoyed watching the elk bucks, cows, and calves flee in a stampede cloud of dust.
It took us 4 hours and 40 minutes to cover the 12.5 miles of the river (not great, not terrible, but definitely better than hiking the same trail back out). I am embarrassed to say it is actually the first packrafting I have done this year! We pulled into the Hoh Rainforest Campground in early afternoon, the sweet spot when one-night campsites are vacant, which was great for drying gear on picnic tables in the sun while I ran to fetch the car. As efficiently as we could, we packed up to drive on to our next adventure before the tides cut us off from our destination. All in all this trip was a really nice 2.5 day sampler of the interior of Olympic National Park with a nice mix of rainforest hiking, glacial views, bluewater packrafting, and mild adventure.
