For a couple of years Wade and I have had the Bailey Traverse on our list of must do trips.  The Bailey Traverse is a high altitude traverse of the Bailey Range in the Olympic Mountains of Washington State, and is rumored to be the most scenic area in the entire range.  It was now August, and the weather was perfect.  After some discussion between the traverse and a trip to the Picket Range, it was decided.  The traverse was on.

            Originally, in our frenzy of planning and summit fever, we had planned finish the traverse with a climb of Mt Olympus from the rarely attempted east side.  However, this option would require us to carry a rope, ice axes, crampons, and snow protection, as well as require two automobiles or a long hitchhike due to the different trailheads.  Being naturally lazy and somewhat time limited, we thought it better to leave all of that extraneous gear at home and drive only one car.  So we went light.  Olympus would have to wait until another time.

            Bright and early Saturday morning we caught the ferry to Port Townsend and drove to the Elwha River Ranger Station on the north end of the park.  The plan was to travel the Bailey Range from north to south and then return north up the Elwha River Trail, thus eliminating the need for two vehicles.  The catch to this plan was that the Elwha River trailhead at Whiskey Bend, our destination, and the Boulder Creek trailhead, our start, were about twelve miles apart.  We drove up to the Boulder Creek trailhead and dropped our packs, then returned to the ranger station to park the car.  After about an hour or hiking up the steep road, a fellow hiker picked us up and took us to the trailhead.  After donning the seemingly way too heavy packs, albeit sans climbing gear, we started trudging up the abandoned road turned trail.  After a quick diversion to check out the Olympic Hot Springs, we continued up to Appleton Pass, our destination for the day.  Arriving at the pass at about 1700, we found an excellent campsite just south of the pass at a small tarn.  After setting up camp, I managed to convince Wade that we needed to climb the unnamed peak just northeast of Appleton Pass.  The climbing guide calls this Peak 6100, and it is actually has a greater elevation than Appleton Peak to the north.  After a pleasant scramble, we both bagged our first Olympic summit.  Returning to the camp for some excellent freeze-dried chow, we proceeded to retire for the evening.  But before we could get to bed, the wildlife show moved in.  A large five-point buck decided that the grass next to the tent was greener than that anywhere else, and a large owl buzzed our abode several times.  This was our first encounter with fauna, but not the last.

Our first Olympic summit; Alpine swimming

            Early the next morning, we packed up and hit the trail.  The plan for the day was to travel a high alpine traverse from Appleton Pass to Cat Basin, and get as far as we could into the Baileys before camping.  About a mile from our camp near Appleton Pass we met a group of marmot researchers from the University of Minnesota.  There was one guy and four women spending about a month in this region studying marmot behavior and population density. What a great way for a guy to earn a college degree; go camping in a remote and beautiful mountain range for a month with four women – where can we sign up!  The route finding was easy on this section due to a well-defined tread in the heather.  The going was easy, but hot due to the excellent weather.  In upper Cat Basin, we found a warm alpine lake that was omitted from the USGS quadrangle, and had a refreshing swim.  The traverse took us about three hours.  The old trail to the “Cat Walk” was easy to find, and looked like it was still maintained.  The constructed trail dead ends in cliffs underneath Cat Peak.  A steep climbers trail heads uphill a few hundred feet at the trails end to gain the ridge between Cat Peak and Mt Carrie.  This ridge, the “catwalk”, must be traversed in order to gain the northern end of the Baileys, and is probably the crux of the traverse.  According to the guidebook, there was a good campsite, “Boston Charlie’s”, on the other end of the catwalk.  It being still early in the day, we decided to scramble up Cat Peak to add to our Olympic summit total.  The scramble up Cat Peak took us about an hour from the catwalk, and ended up to be a walk over precariously balanced rocks of all sizes and shapes.  The views from the summit to Mt Olympus were excellent.  However, the catwalk awaited us.

            The catwalk ended up being less difficult than it appeared.  It was steep and brushy in places, but never over third class.  A rope for less experienced scramblers would be judicious here.  The traverse took about forty-five minutes.  Boston Charlie’s is a wide spot on the aręte just past the Catwalk with a dirty looking tarn at one end, and some goats hanging out looking for trouble.  This perch has excellent views, but is not altogether roomy.  We set up camp, and then had a look at Mt Carrie.  Mt Carrie is the highest peak in the Bailey Range, and was on our list of must haves.  We decided to go for it that afternoon.  From Boston Charlie’s to the summit took about an hour and a half.  The views of the range and Mt Olympus were unsurpassed.  Returning to the camp, we found that another group had set up camp next to us.  They had just traversed the range from south to north, and had attempted to climb Olympus via the route that we had considered.  They were carrying a lot of weight with all of their climbing gear, and were consuming pain killers with abandon.  After trading whiskey shots, we got the route beta for the rest of the traverse.  One thing they emphasized was to pay attention to the altimeter when descending into Cream Lake.

Goats at Boston Charlie's

Mt Carrie

            We started the next day fresh with high hopes of making it past Mt Ferry to a campsite high on the crest of the range.  While packing up, I discovered that the gang of goats had stolen my helmet sometime during the night.  These goats were particularly annoying, especially during those midnight trips to the loo.  They almost tripped over themselves and you in order to be the first to sample your urine. 

The traverse around the west side of Mt Carrie was steep and long.  The guidebook had stated that campsites were infrequent and marginal.  I would agree with that statement based on the rest of the traverse.  However there were two or three campsites on this stretch that were comfortable and had water.  However, it would be prudent to plan to complete this segment in a day.  The going was steep, and class three in one spot crossing a stream gully.  Descending into Cream Lake, we followed what we thought was the trail, which dead ended in a swamp.  By the time we looked at the altimeters, we discovered that we had descended too far and would have to either climb back up to regain the trail, or brush crunch to the lake.  Being naturally lazy, we decided to do a climbing traverse to where the lake should be.  We got lucky, and stumbled across a stream.  It had to lead to the lake.  Sure enough, it did, and we ate a quick lunch at the lake.  Talking to other hikers, it turns out that this area is known for its route finding problems.  Paying more attention to the altimeter would have paid us big dividends in this instance.

            We started our climb up towards Mt Ferry from Cream Lake.  At this time my knee started acting up, so I started to fall behind.  The route follows the stream up from the lake to a fork.  The guidebook did not elaborate on which fork to take, so we took the right hand fork.  Mistake.  After some backtracking and steep traversing, we managed to climb our way back to a lake underneath the north face of Mt Ferry.  The side trip was not all that bad.  We had a good swim in a warm alpine lake and saw a black bear rummaging for treats.

The view from Mt Carrie

The Campsite at Mt Ferry

            Our campsite was very scenic, and I was glad for the early stop to rest my knee.  Early the next morning we traversed around the west side of Mt Ferry and gained the most scenic portion of the traverse.  The trip from Mt Ferry to Queets Basin was nothing short of outstanding.  The views were excellent and the going was easy along long ridges and over easy summits. That was until we encountered a snowfield (actually an old glacier) just north of Mt Childs.  Being a low snow year and late in the year, this was solid ice, albeit at a low angle, and could not be bypassed easily, except possibly by a 1000 foot descent.  And in our bid to go light, we had not even brought aluminum crampons.  Crossing this snowfield was done very carefully, using our poles as makeshift ice tools.  Crampons would have been comfortable here, but an ice axe was not needed.  We traversed around the east side of Mt Childs, and then descended into Bear Pass, over the other side of Bear Pass, and descended down into the Queets Basin.  At this point, we had decided to forgo any other summits due to my overworked knee.  There were a lot of worthy ones that we bypassed, most notably the rugged Mt Queets.  On the far side of the Queets Basin lies Rodwell-Dixon Pass, which leads to the gully that takes you down into the Elwha Basin.  The pass is somewhat indistinct until you are actually through it, and might provide some route finding issues with poor visibility.  After descending through the pass, we encountered the Elwha Snow Finger, an impressive snow and ice plug riddled with moats and melt holes that plugs the gully.  The Elwha Snow Finger, more of a huge snow hump with ice caves, had to be bypassed on the left on our descent.  We picked up the trail leading out of the gully on climbers’ right, and took it down to the Elwha Valley.  Not content with just that, we continued on another eight miles down the valley to camp at the river’s edge at an improved campsite.

The high traverse;  Wade silhouetted against the glacier crossing

Mt Queets from Bear Pass;  The Elwha River

            The next day was a long but pleasant hike north down the valley to the trailhead at Whiskey Bend.  At Whiskey Bend, we had another five miles of road hiking to do to get to the car, which was parked at the Elwha Ranger Station.  We ended up running the entire way; no one wanted to pick up two crazy and dirty looking joggers with thumbs sticking out.  After a very refreshing dip in Lake Mills, we headed back to catch the last ferry to Whidbey Island.

            The Bailey Traverse ended up being everything that I had expected.  The scenery and position are unsurpassed in the Olympics, and the travel mostly easy.  The climbing was never more that class three, and the route finding was mostly straightforward.  There are multiple options to either shorten the traverse or scramble to more summits.  The traverse can be done solo by an experienced climber.  Highly recommended for the experienced and adventurous backcountry traveler.

Wades Notes:

When we entered the Elwha Basin after descending from the traverse we came across 4 groups (a group of two that had been in front of us on the traverse and 3 groups of 6+ each that were on the way up to get on the traverse).  Therefore, although we only saw 6 people on the traverse we could have seen up to 30 if we had been a day or two later.  With this many people you could expect that some backcountry campsites will be taken prior to your arrival.  Regardless, there are multiple options for camping at least every 3-4 miles while on the traverse.

Water was plentiful throughout the traverse even though it was the dry season and a very low snow-pack year.