Climbing Mt. Olympus

Four Part Series - Part 3

Day 3 - Summit Day

At 1:10 am Craig's voice boomed across the snow : "Time to wake up guys". The thump of adrenalin hits your veins in anticipation; throw on the contacts, clothes, harness, boots, helmet, gaiters and crampons. Stumble outside and behold the mountain all aglow from the moon with high clouds wisping overhead. I packed my mono-pod for summit shots, and crammed it into the snow for a few shots while I ate my 2 packs of oatmeal mixed in with hot-chocolate. The anticipation of the start dulls any sense of sleep or tiredness. We rope up, same order as before : Alaina leading, then me, then Seth and Jeff brings up the rear. Craig starts off first up the snow dome, leading Steve, Karl and Jim and we follow. They take a nice rest step pace : kick front leg and lock, taking off weight from back leg then left back leg and kick. Lather, rinse and repeat. One step at a time make our way up the snow dome. Its not a race and I am not even breathing hard, so trying to be helpful in the dark plodding along I start telling a story from the book Worst Journey in the World about Scott's men camping on the ice with Russian horses and how they woke in the night to the sound of breaking ice and open water and were harried by Killer Whales.... (read the book) and Craig yelled back down : "Hey guys lets keep quiet and listen to the sound of the morning wind. If you guys have enough air to talk perhaps I am not going fast enough". In other words shut up. :) I mutter inside my head a bit hurt, but turn my attention back to climbing, which was exactly Craig's point : stay focused on the task at hand. He warned us again to be careful as we came upon our first turn on the slope where we'd have to step across the rope as we changed directions. Seth slipped and his right crampon sliced the gaiter, pant and calf on his left leg. About 3/4 inch wide and deep enough to have some fatty stuff poking out. Alaina pulled out her first aid kit, butterflied it, gauzed it and wrapped it. Seth said it felt fine and we carried on. Late Craig said he was worried he was going to have to send Seth back to camp, I replied that I think you'd have had to saw Seth's foot off to keep him from reaching the summit that day.

We carried on up the snow dome and then with the summit directly in front of us which has a huge bergschrund blocking a more direct ascent, so we turned to the left (east) heading for a notch in the Five Finger Ridge. Here we came to a very steep 20 foot slope. Alaina kicked steps up the slope and we all followed. Still pitch black we crossed over a gnarly looking snow bridge across two crevasses and made our way along a snow field leading around the backside of the summit. Karl asked Craig if we were stopping anytime soon as he was having cramps and was going to have to use the bathroom! Uggh, talk about not the time; usually they just furrow out the rope to the end and you have no privacy, but Karl convinced Craig to let him go down the slope a bit, we all turned of our lights for a bit of privacy and waited. Blue bag in hand, Karl said he felt better and we carried on. We stop to remove our crampons and cross a rocky ridge on the backside of the summit, just minor scrambling without any exposure. We've now come full circle to the ridge below, the sky is beginning to lighten as we walk up the windswept and icy bowl of crystal pass that sits between the west peak and a small unnamed rocky peak. Once more on with the crampons we kick up the very steep slope of the last snow field below the haystack of the west peak.

Now its a matter of route finding for Craig and Alaina while the rest of the two rope teams sit on the slope and wait. What a fortuitous set of circumstances, as we sit the dawn unfolds before us. The clouds in the sky takes on an intense orange glow silhouetting Mt. Baker and then I yell as the sun cracks over a distant ridge and shines its orange glow across the peaks as we all grin from the sheer joy of being up high with such a beautiful setting. Meanwhile Alaina and Craig have prepared a narrow snow ramp with steep sides onto the haystack. Protection is provided by a couple of picket's along the way. As we cross the bridge, we leave our crampons and ice axes behind on the snow and start the scramble up the haystack.

This scramble has a bit more exposure, as we walk along a crack and then climb up a 5.6 chimney which got my blood pounding. Then its a simple matter of scrambling up the ridge line to the summit! The views were astounding as the still early light played off the snowy peaks of nearby Mt. Tom and the north summit. Mt. Adams and Mt. St. Helens lay off on the distance as well. I cram my mono pod in between two large rocks and shimmying it with a small rock and we all pose on the top for the requisite summit photo. We spent 30 minutes on top, admiring the views, taking photos and taking it all in. What a sense of accomplishment, and what a great mountain.


Then the reverse begins, we down climb through the chimney and begin our descent. Its interesting to see in the light going down what we'd passed in the dark coming up, large crevasses looked bigger in the light and the snow dome is much better lit up. We made quick time step sliding down to the steep slope of the snow dome above our camp. Along the way I continue to take photos, and Craig took to calling our rope crew the Shutter Bug Team, as Seth has the same photo taking propensity, later this moniker was shortened to the Bug Team and then the B-Team. Arriving at the snow dome, we all really wanted to glissade down, so we traversed over a bit so as to not go sliding into oblivion and then while roped up each team slid down in succession and walked the few feet back to camp. Safe and sound, my body seemed to know that NOW was the time to relieve bodily functions and I became a member of the blue bag club. (Its very important in the high alpine zones to minimize the impact of humans, thus all solid waste has to be bagged and removed) We broke camp, loaded up our packs and started descending through the rock and snow fields to the blue glacier.

Traveling back across the blue glacier was very hot, while a cool breeze blew high clouds across the mountains, the sun was still shining and the reflective sun across the ice was sweltering. I was sweating buckets as we made our way back across. With the two days of sun, there was even more water on the glacier and the slushy holes. Sadly our time on the snow and ice came to an end and we made our last bit of elevation gain back up to the top of the moraine where we changed out of long pants and shirts to shorts and sleeves and put all the glacier gear away. The heavy packs slung once more on our backs, we made for Elk Lake where we would reunite with the mules. I have never been more happy to see a 4 legged creature than those mules walking up the trail. Our packs lightened we quickly made the way back over the High Hoh bridge, around the chutes and to Lewis Meadows, 14 hours after starting that morning. Seth, Jeff and I wandered down to the river to wash off. I lay down in the river a couple of times and scrubbed the sweat and grime off. Seth not having a change of clothes stripped and bathed. I tried to convince Steve to get in, goading him about when he'd be back in such a setting, but he just enjoyed laying on the sand bar listening to his i-pod. Dinner that night couldn't come soon enough, we were starving. Finally ready, we piled in for mounds of pasta with cheesy sauce and sausage. Exhausted we trundled off to bed to catch up on sleep. Sadly my sleeping pad had been had been punctured at high camp while packing up and I had a very uncomfortable night ahead of me.

Stats : 13.4 miles - 3090 ascend - 7860 decent - 14 hr, 35 min

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