Pictures from this part of the trip can be found in Gallery, Part 2.
The backcountry route we followed is described in this PDF.
The next morning, we got up fairly early (7:00am), and ate our microwave sandwiches, and checked out of the hotel around 8:00am. We got to the Hoh River Visitor Center and were out on the trail by 8:45am, a bit earlier than we had planned.
The trail was pretty flat in the initial section, and we stayed in the vicinity of the river bottom for most of the day. Our first big excitement of the hike happend about 10 minutes in: mule deer on the path ahead of us. A bit after that, we started hearing odd noises, which turned out to be the trumpeting of Roosevelt Elk! We heard trumpeting from both sides of the trail, but eventually only saw elk on one side. We must have walked through a widely-scattered group.
The trees here are huge! There are fallen trunks everywhere. In some places, the National Park Service has chosen to just use huge tree trunks instead of building bridges across streams like you'd see in other parks. It's kind of a strange feeling to walk across a trunk like this... they're big enough you can almost forget. Most of the time, we were within old growth pine forest, but there was one section of relatively recent forest that we thought was birch. Later, we learned it was a new alder forest which had grown as a result of a big fire in the late 1970s.
When we checked in at the Visitor Center in Port Angeles, the ranger had mentioned in passing that there was an avalanche wash-out on the trail up near Glacier Meadows. "But there's a ladder, so you'll be OK", he said off-handedly. This was kind of on our minds, so we asked about it whenever we ran aross someone on the trail (which wasn't very often). One group of people said they had heard that rangers had pulled the ladder up for the season.
We had hoped to find a ranger at Olympus Guard Station (a backcountry ranger station about 9 miles in), so we could ask them about trail conditions. Unfortunately, the guard station was closed for the season. However, we did run into a group of people who had been up there earlier in the day. They were able to confirm that the ladder had been pulled, but they implied that it was no big deal: "There's still a rope!" We weren't sure what to make of this, until we realized they had climbing gear and had just been to the summit of Mt. Olympus. After that, we decided that we did not trust their judgement about what was difficult or not.
Our permit had us camping near Olympus Guard Station for the night. However, we were still feeling pretty good at this point, so we decided to push on another 1.5 miles to Lewis Meadow. (When you're in the area of the river bottom, regulations allow you to camp anywhere, even outside of established campgrounds.)
When we got to Lewis Meadow, we were less than impressed with the campground. While it was generally level and grassy, it was pretty lumpy and we didn't see anywhere we wanted to put the tent. Eventually, we decided to pitch the tent on a sandbar out in the river valley. We got everything set up and even managed to finish dinner before dark.
After talking it over, we decided to change our plans. Originally, we had expected to pack up on Tuesday and head about 7 miles straight up hill from Lewis Meadow to Glacier Meadows. However, we were concerned about the glacier washout and whether we (Ken) would be capable of dealing with it after the exertion of the climb. Instead, we decided to cut our trip short by a day and day-hike on Tuesday rather than packing up camp and heading to Glacier Meadows.
The overnight was difficult. Ken was still suffering the after-effects of his head cold and alternated between being chilly and feverish. After a bathroom break at around 3:00am, he finally managed to arrange things so he could sleep. (The vapor barrier in the Warmlite sleeping bags probably exacerbated the problem.)
In the morning, we ate breakfast, secured the site, and packed up a minimum set of gear: food for the day, water, rain gear and emergency supplies, etc. With this light load, we headed out. We got gone kind of late (9:45am), and tentatively planned to hike out 3.5 hours before turning around, which would get us back to camp at a reasonable hour.
Our first milestone was reaching the High Hoh bridge, which crosses the Hoh River in a deep chasm far below. We were already climbing, but the trail turned even steeper at this point. In retrospect, it was probably just as good that we decided to day hike. The trail was definitely somewhat difficult, and it was slow going. It would have been a very long day with our full pack weight.
As we got higher, the forest changed in an almost undefinable way: it was darker, very quiet, and the character of the undergrowth changed. The pictures we took did not really do the place justice. It wasn't dark and creepy, more dark and magnificent, like a Gothic cathedral.
After a while, we found ourselves aiming for Elk Lake, about 2/3 of the way to our original goal of Glacier Meadows by distance (but less than half by elevation). Every switchback, we held out hope that the next turn would be the last before Elk Lake (and its latrine). Eventually, we just gave up and sat down in the middle of the trail to eat. And, Julie had a side adventure while finding a tree to pee behind... rule #1: check that whatever you sit on is stable. :)
Even though we had exceeded our time limit by the time we finished lunch, we gave ourselves another 20 minutes to find Elk Lake. Fortunately, we did find it. There were a bunch of scattered camp sites around the lake, and we explored a little before heading back.
After we got back across the High Hoh Bridge, the trail got a lot easier (fewer things to trip on). That was just as good, because Ken was exhausted and was pretty much on autopilot after that point: he focused on watching Julie's feet ahead of him. We finally got back to camp around 6:00pm, which gave us just enough time to cook, clean up, and refill water before the sun set.
After sunset, we did some stretching down by the riverbank and then sat on the rocks and read for a bit before calling it an early night. There were no bugs, so it was quite pleasant: we finally gave up because it getting cold.
The whole day, we saw perhaps 5 groups of people. By the time we went to bed it had been almost 12 hours since the last time we had seen anyone.
Overnight Tuesday into Wednesday was much colder than the previous night (probably in the high 30s F). Ken slept better, Julie slept worse. In the morning, we made an effort to get up around 7:00am, since it consistently takes us about 2 hours to eat and break camp, and we wanted to be on the trail by not much after 9:00am.
Somehow, the trail seemed hillier on the way back out than on the way in. By the middle of the day, Ken was not enjoying himself very much. We stopped for lunch at the Happy Four campground, which is a beautiful little area right on the river. Ken even managed to close his eyes for a few minutes. We were tempted to stay right there, because it was so relaxing, but eventually we decided to push on.
For the remainder of the trip, we took breaks about once an hour. Ken just wasn't able to push on much longer than that before taking a load off his feet and shoulders. Some pack adjustments (loosening the shoulder straps) had made a difference earlier in the day, but he was still sore and tired.
We got back to the Hoh River Visitor Center about 4:00pm, ate a snack (leftover Hostess cupcakes!) and headed back to our hotel. Fortunately, they had one room left and we were able to add the extra night onto our reservation. We cleaned up and showered, and then headed out to try our luck with Forks Food for a second night. This time, we tried Pacific Pizza, reasoning that it was more difficult to screw up pizza and pasta than scallops. It turned out ok, although not great.
After getting back to the hotel, we unpacked all of our gear to let it air out and then went to bed early. Olympic Suites is a converted apartment building, so we basically had a ground-level 1-bedroom apartment. It was nice to have so much space to spread out in, because we weren't tripping over everything.