Hiking the Hoh River trail to Blue Glacier (Part 1)

Into the rainforest

Ever since I first explored Olympic National Park two summers ago, I was entranced by the idea that I could walk through a rainforest and end up at a glacier. This is the Hoh rainforest, one of the quietest places in North America. The trail was supposedly 17.3 miles each way (more like 19, I was to discover). I had never backpacked that long on my own, but I knew I had to return.

A year later, I was back. I drove all day from my home in Vancouver, Canada, to Kalaloch Campground. As always, I left later than I would have liked. I was soon rounding dark and solitary roads of the Olympic Peninsula—a patchwork of mostly fading industrial towns, rural outposts, and indigenous reservations. As exhaustion creeped in, an enormous full moon rose to follow me. I whizzed by a deer with big antlers munching by the side of the road. It was a perfect Boards of Canada landscape.

In the morning I had tea on the beach. Imbibing catechins by a remote and wild landscape fills me with a deep peace and joy.

Because I got in late, I started late. Getting into the Hoh rainforest takes awhile, as the parking lot fills up, and there is often construction on the narrow roads. At one point a tree fell. While I was waiting for the go-ahead that the road was clear, I asked the large indigenous young woman on stoplight duty if this happened often.

“All the time,” she said, clearly bored.

By the time I was ready to start hiking it was nearly 4 PM. I grabbed my attempting-to-be light Six Moon Designs Minimalist V2 backpack and started walking. With all my food and several liters of water, it weighed 30-35 pounds. My thighs quickly felt the strain. I had about 11 miles to go to my campsite at Lewis Meadow.

I began to walk as quickly as I could, knowing I would need to take breaks along the way, as well as filter water at some point. Because I had been on this trail twice before, I was eager to surpass myself, and leave the day hikers behind. A couple hours in, it happened. I was in the wilderness, by myself.

Traversing the humid Hoh rainforest.

I continued to pass towering trees and huge plants. The Hoh rainforest is a temperate rainforest, but it was warm, and I could feel the humidity emanating all around me from the sea of green. I began to hum and sing to myself, for bear safety. On the precipice of evening, as I was babbling to myself at a very wide point of the Hoh River, I felt something, and stopped.

I looked across the river bank to see an entire herd of 20-30 large elk turning their heads in my direction. They were munching on grass, wondering who the loon was. It was a magnificent sight, but I didn’t stop long; I was worried about making it to my campsite before dark. When I returned this way two days later during mid-day, there was nothing—a reminder that nature exists in space and time, always changing.

As I twisted and turned through the forest, I got some strange pains in my hips and feet at various points, but trusted that the Earth would heal me. I should also add that I had been having daily foot pain for the past 1.5 years due to warts followed by callouses, including ongoing sesamoid inflammation. My solution was to do the entire hike in hiking sandals (with socks). I had already done this twice on local mountains with good results, so why not for 20 hours?

Blazing by big-booters in my Keen H2 sandals—especially during river crossings.

I stopped to filter some water from a pristine looking stream. It was tasty and pure. But I didn’t linger. I had in my mind a sentence I had read before my trip,

“80% of human-predator interactions take place in riparian zones.”

My thighs felt like jelly. I finally reached the first river crossing, and took out my hiking poles. It looked deceptively shallow, but water is one of the most powerful forces on the planet. I looked both ways (for bears or mountain lions bathing upstream of course!) and stepped carefully across, one foot and one pole at a time. I briefly lost my balance for a moment, but ended up on the other side—and I never had to change my shoes. The water was cold, but my socks and sandals dried quickly. At around 7:30 PM in early August, the direct sun was still intense.

At the second river crossing, a large family with both teenagers and children was preparing to cross. I attempted to talk to them, but they were clearly of the local PNW ilk: stoic, hardcore outdoor people, and suspicious of strangers. I forged ahead.

I arrived at the Lewis Meadow campground at 9 PM. As usual, I was one of the last people to arrive. After walking for hours through a thin trail surrounded by plants and water, turning off to a wide open meadow felt like something of a mirage. Two deer were peacefully munching away. I saw a few campers, and then more as I walked towards the Hoh river. Almost everyone was already in their tents and hammocks.

My campsite at Lewis Meadow, in the morning.

I set up my tent directly by the flowing river. A large bank of hills and trees surrounded me. I went to inspect the bear wire, as I didn’t have a bear canister, even though almost every one else seemed to. There were only two lines, and they were all heavily laden with multiple bags. My heart sank--this was exactly what I was afraid of.

I had to consider the situation, but I needed to eat. The light was fading. I unfolded my ultralight chair and ate bread, trail mix, a can of salmon, and some precooked cauliflower-pesto mix (way too oily--thank god it was double bagged). I considered my options.

I had to store my food in a way that was bear safe, there were no buts-but-I had never used this bear wire contraption before, and although the pulley system seemed logical enough, some of the lines were split and seemed dubious, and it wasn’t clear in the fading light if there was an available hook for the dry bag I had brought.

On the one hand, if I didn’t store my food properly, and a bear or another animal was attracted to it, it would be very bad. On the other, if I attempted to hook my bag on the wire, (which necessitated pulling the entire wire down), with all the other bags, and I couldn’t get all the bags back up, then that would be even worse. Multiple bags would be compromised, I would be in deep trouble, the campsite would be roaming with bears. Rangers would be running through the woods, attempting to contain a feeding frenzy, while backpackers beat me down with their carbon trekking poles.

While I puzzled over this dilemma, I had to use the outhouse, a simple structure made of wood—but those wooden slats did cover the entirety of it. And look, there was even a wooden latch that could be closed from either side! Could I…?

It was risky, unorthodox, and completely unsanctioned by any park service, but given my options at 10:30 PM, it seemed like the best choice: I carefully closed every container, and put all scented items in as many possible bags and layers inside the actual bag, clipped everything together, and put it in the corner of the outhouse, next to the toilet (yuck). I closed the lock and hoped for the best.

Part 2: Hiking the Blue glacier