Lake Angeles, Olympic National Park May 29-31, 2021

Lake Angeles, Olympic National Park
Looking west from Seattle the Olympic mountains often merge with clouds on the horizon. The mountains seem unreal, floating over the Pacific. The Olympic Peninsula is so vast and roadless that it is home to one of the quietest places in the continental US. Although the peninsula is fairly close to Seattle, it is a longer drive so we have not explored it very much. One of my goals for 2021 is to become more familiar with this incredible area so I have planned several trips to different zones within Olympic National Park.

For Memorial Day weekend 2021, I reserved a campsite inside the national park at Lake Angeles near Heart O' the Hills for 2 nights. My idea was to set up a basecamp and then hike the trails towards the classic ski descent of Victor Pass, off Klahhane Ridge-- or at least go explore for some turns on the high ground above Lake Angeles.

Based on recent trip reports and a pre-trip phone conversation with the park rangers I knew that the trail to Lake Angeles was completely snow-free but that there was a lot of snow remaining up high. We packed in not only our backpacking equipment and food (in the mandatory bear canister) for 3 days, but also our ski equipment (skis, skins, ski crampons, helmet, avalanche beacon, shovel, probe, ski boots) and ice axes and boot crampons. This made for a heavy load and a slow hiking pace as we gained the 3.7 miles and 2300 vertical feet to Lake Angeles. The 20-acre lake, one of the largest in the park, fills a glacial cirque and is ringed by dramatic cliffs -- a truly spectacular setting! We passed a handful of day hikers on our trudge upwards. I was surprised by the lack of crowds for this holiday weekend.

After our 2-hour hike to the lake, we set up camp at the north end of the lake and enjoyed lounging around in the sun and taking photos for the rest of Saturday afternoon. The sunset painted the cliffs around the lake with rosy light. We anticipated more fair weather for Sunday, our day to seek turns.

On Sunday, May 30, 2021, after a quick breakfast we loaded up our packs-- somehow not that much lighter!--and began hiking up towards Klahhane Ridge under gray cloudy skies. After about half a mile/700 vertical feet gained we reached the snow line. We stashed our sneakers in a convenient niche in the rocks. The trail was very hard to find after it veers towards the far side (not the Lake Angeles side) of the ridge. We were working hard to avoid downed trees, rotten snow, etc., and find the trail. Ice axes and crampons were very necessary for our bushwhacking. 

We later realized that in this section, the ridge is quite sharp and fin-like, with sheer rocky faces. The narrow trail hugs the base of these rock faces. The lingering snow draped from the ridge over the trail, forming very steep snowbanks that concealed the trail very well! (In fact we had to front point and shuffle sideways along it for stretches on our return journey since the snow extended across the whole trail and then the hillside sloped steeply down below the trail.) 

The trail later crosses back over the ridge to the Lake Angeles side, but we did not locate this passage over and simply chose to scramble up and over at another point. The topography and cliffs constrained our ability to head south by then anyway. A fine misty drizzle came and went. The skies gradually cleared with some light cloud cover.

The snow was firm enough that we did not use our skis with skins and simply hiked with boot crampons and ice axes. We finally gained the highest ground south of Lake Angeles - not the top of the cliffs that are visible from the lake shore but a second, higher ridge set further back to the south. The snow at this high ground was wind-scoured and peppered thickly with rocky dust swept by prevailing winds. The south aspect of this ridge was snow-free but the north face (which we had just ascended) was well-covered with snow. We paused here to take in the magnificent views of the Pacific Ocean, Canada, the flat-topped white cone of Mount Baker with its peak wrapped in clouds, and of course, much closer and below us, Port Angeles to the north. Spinning around we could gaze south at the panorama of the Olympic Mountains and pick out glaciers on Mount Olympus. The road up to Hurricane Ridge was a tiny ribbon far below. 

Because so much bare ground was exposed, we located the trail that runs towards Klahhane Ridge and Victor Pass but given how much time our bushwhacking had consumed, we opted to not attempt to head that way. Additionally the path there was looking pretty rugged with more snow. We were able to see Victor Pass intermittently during our bushwhack and from our highest point and we could see ski tracks plus the skin track back up. It looked to be skiable and fun--some other time we'll have to get there. I realized that my idea of reaching Victor Pass was extremely ambitious given the season and the wisdom of taking the usual approach via the Switchback trail.
 
At last we were able to quit carrying the skis and transition to downhill mode. Below the stripe of dirty snow we found nice creamy snow with good coverage and a longish run down to the rocky ridge on skier's left that we had crossed over on our way up. We aimed for a point where we believed the summer trail crossed over, removed our skis and scrambled back over, ending up again on the non-Lake Angeles side, and began the process of bushwhacking and attempting to stay fairly close to the purported summer trail. Eventually we got back to that half-mile of dirt trail... reclaimed our sneakers and descended quickly back to basecamp to chow down on some pasta and watch the sunset illuminate the lake with its colors. Time well spent in the mountains! 

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