Olympic National Park, Washington, 1981

I'm planning a climbing trip to Olympic National Park this summer (2006). So in order to motivate myself to start preparations, here are a few shots from the last time I summitted the peak. I have worked hard on the captions to make this into a bit of a climber's guide.

$Ok, THIS you do have to climb. This is the western half of the icefall. Snow Dome is just out of view to the right. If you begin at the right edge of the image and follow the horizon line to the left (east), you go up some steep icy rock and then across a ridge of snow to another rock. *That* is the true summit of Mt. Olympus, West Peak. Then you have a little notch and then an icy rock ridge that comes toward you and ends in the middle of the icefall. That is Five Finger Ridge. The climbing route crosses the scene right-to-left across the bright smooth snow and crosses over Five Finger Ridge into the cirque above the icefall to the left of the ridge. You parallel the ridge until you come to a gap which you walk through and then climb a rock pitch to the False Summit. Descend from the False Summit into a notch and you find yourself, at last, at the foot of the summit pinnacle. There's a 100' pitch of highly fractured rock up to the summit.$

9 / 29

Ok, THIS you do have to climb.

This is the western half of the icefall. Snow Dome is just out of view to the right. If you begin at the right edge of the image and follow the horizon line to the left (east), you go up some steep icy rock and then across a ridge of snow to another rock. *That* is the true summit of Mt. Olympus, West Peak. Then you have a little notch and then an icy rock ridge that comes toward you and ends in the middle of the icefall. That is Five Finger Ridge.

The climbing route crosses the scene right-to-left across the bright smooth snow and crosses over Five Finger Ridge into the cirque above the icefall to the left of the ridge. You parallel the ridge until you come to a gap which you walk through and then climb a rock pitch to the False Summit. Descend from the False Summit into a notch and you find yourself, at last, at the foot of the summit pinnacle. There's a 100' pitch of highly fractured rock up to the summit.

blue glacier ice fall west