I got up at around 8 in the morning. After some breakfast and coffee at the motel, we headed the Hoh Visitor Center. We got a backcountry permit from the ranger whom we would meet again the next day at Olympus Guard Station. We studied the trail in more details and roughly planed to camp at OGS (9.1) the first night and Happy Four (5.7) the second night, although we later deviated from the original plan. The ranger was very nice and patient explaining all kinds of issues to us.

After getting the permit, we put on the already packed backpacks and started off my first backpacking trip. Although I have done some day hikes and are quite confident, even with the Half Dome hike, but I know backpacking would be a lot different. My pack was 45 pounds. I was not sure how that load would affect the hiking. And I was not sure how my strength would be the next day. I was a little nervous and excited at the same time.

As we expected, the first part of the trail is quite flat, even a little boring without too many exciting points. We started off at around 11am and had some lunch at 1pm. We arrived OGS at about 4pm without a lot difficuties. There are several muddy spots and creeks to ford, but generally OK. There is a creek about half a mile before OGS which imposed some confusion. We spent some time trying to figure out a way to get across. There was a bunch of guys on their way out and having a break there. One guy pointed us a big log and told us it is the easiest way. It is still hard. The log is too big. We can not possibly get up with full packs. I had to climb up without the pack and had Yinan lift up the packs and hand to me. I also had to help her up. The log is also slippery. But we finally made across it.

There is a log cabin at OGS, which is the ranger station.The whole place is a big and nice meadow by the river. It looks like a very good site for camping. But we figured it’d be too early to camp. We had to find a way to kill the rest of the day. We also kinda wanted to save some work for the next day, which would be tough, because the last 5 miles are the hardest part. So we studied the map a bit and decided to head for Elk Lake at 15.1 and 2600 feet high.

The next several miles are still not that tough, untill about 13 miles into the trail, after the Hoh River Bridge. BTW, the bridge is fantastic. It hangs hundreds of feet above the river gorge and one can have a very open view of the Hoh River. I wonder how did they build the bridge in the first place.

The trail gets a lot tougher after the bridge. The elevation begins to climb quickly. After 6 hours of hiking with the heavy load, the climbing becomes hard. Yinan got exhausted very soon. I had to encourage her by promising breaks at certain times and counting minutes to break times :). She is always like this, not very good in the earlier part of the trail, and no one can catch her up in the later part.

We finally made to Elk Lake at around 8pm. There were already some people there. This isn’t a very pleasant place to camp, probably because of the elevation. It’s hard to find a flat place. It’s shady and cold. The closest place to get water is a very muddy creek. The mud merged half of my boots. My boots and pants got very dirty. The weather was not very nice either. It was freezing with the wet shirts on. I got changed but it was still cold. The sun should have not set yet but totally blocked by the clouds. We set up the tent and cooked. By the time we finally were able to get something hot to eat, it was already pretty dark. We tried to finish the dinner quickly and hang all the foods up on the bear wire. It began to rain soon after we got into the tent. It kept drizzling for almost the whole night. Fortunately our Marmot tent proved to be very strong and warm. My down sleeping bag also helped a lot keeping me warm.