The Bailey Range; a True Paradise

Client Mike Natuc­ci and guide Aili Far­quhar head­ed out on the sun­ny morn­ing of July 20^th from Sec­ond Ascent in Seat­tle. Their des­ti­na­tion: the Bai­ley Range, a remote inte­ri­or sub-range of the Olympic Moun­tains. This range is rugged, with peaks soar­ing from sea lev­el to 7,000 feet or more just miles from the ocean. The low­er slopes are cov­ered with thick rain­for­est, some of which receives more than 300 inch­es of rain a year. The Bai­leys are known for intri­cate glaciat­ed ter­rain, rot­ten rock, and abun­dant veg­e­ta­tion, all of which the team would encounter on their nine day odyssey across the Bai­ley Range.

Aili Far­quhar Photo

Mike was no stranger to off-trail trav­el in the Olympics, and had com­plet­ed the Ptarmi­gan Tra­verse with Moun­tain Mad­ness the year before. Aili had tra­versed part of the Bai­leys on a per­son­al trip years before, and had explored oth­er areas of the Olympics as a wilder­ness ranger, Mad­ness guide, and on per­son­al time. The first crux of the trip for this strong team was get­ting out of Seat­tle on the Edmonds-Kingston fer­ry before the hoard­es of week­enders got ahead of them in line. This feat accom­plished, the two nar­row­ly dodged the Laven­der Fes­ti­val in Sequim as they arranged a car shut­tle from the Sol-Duc trail­head to the Hoh cour­tesy of climber Bret Wirta, who cour­te­ous­ly offered to accom­mo­date this shut­tle despite the fact that he could not go on the trip.

Aili Far­qhar Photo

Mike and Aili loaded up their packs with nine days of food, camp­ing gear, fuel, and cloth­ing before hit­ting the trail to the Bai­leys. They climbed through big old growth trees in the hot sun, pass­ing fam­i­lies and day hik­ers before begin­ning a steep uphill sec­tion. They camped that night in the sub­alpine, fil­ter­ing water from Bridge Creek before set­ting out in the cool ear­ly morn­ing tem­per­a­tures for what the ranger at the Wilder­ness Infor­ma­tion Cen­ter in Port Ange­les had said would be a snowy traverse. 

Aili Far­qhar Photo

When Mike and Aili arrived at the High Divide at 5,000 foot ele­va­tion they were pleas­ant­ly sur­prised. The five feet of snow the ranger had warned them about had melt­ed out and left in its wake wav­ing fields of white glac­i­er lilies with bright yel­low cen­ters. They hiked on a good trail to the famed Cat­walk between Cat Basin and Mt. Car­rie. This is the true begin­ning of the Bai­ley Range, and lived up to its rep­u­ta­tion for tricky, rocky trav­el, bad rock, and pre­cip­i­tous drop-offs on either side. Curi­ous moun­tain goats observed the climb­ing team from a dis­tance as they roped up and made their way through this half-mile of steep ter­rain with heavy sec­ond-day-of-the-trip packs. 

Aili Far­qhar Photo

After a rest at the stag­nant tarn at Boston Charlie’s camp, the team head­ed out of the for­est and up the grassy low­er slopes of Mt. Car­rie. They encoun­tered snow­fields and steep talus on the upper slopes, and roped up once again. As they rest­ed in the warm, wind­less after­noon air on the sum­mit Aili spied a flat bivy site a few hun­dred yards down the ridge. The team decid­ed to bivy right on top of the Mt. Car­rie ridge. After set­ting up camp and melt­ing water, the two set­tled in for a din­ner of freeze dried food with a cup of hot lemon-gin­ger tea with hon­ey and choco­late cher­ries for dessert. The sun set over the High Divide and the fold­ed ridges of the Hoh Riv­er drainage as the full moon rose over the peaks lit by red light in the east.

Aili Far­qhar Photo

The next morn­ing, the team tra­versed the Car­rie Glac­i­er to the pass that would take them to 11 Bull Basin. The ascent to this pass turned out to be more tech­ni­cal than they had antic­i­pat­ed, with steep snow and a short walk over exposed glac­i­er ice. Mike climbed this obsta­cle with strength and grace despite the heavy pack and his lim­it­ed expe­ri­ence on this type of ter­rain. They ate lunch at the top of the pass, then dropped into the basin. Elk tracks in the snow showed them the best way to tra­verse around the par­tial­ly frozen lake in the basin until they encoun­tered an out­let stream too big to jump across. Aili was able to jus­ti­fy her deci­sion to lug her Crocs all the way across the Bai­ley Range when the team used them to cush­ion their boot-soft­ened feet against sharp stones dur­ing the wade across this stream with heavy packs. They found a delight­ful flat camp­site in 11 Bull Basin, and splashed clean in the melt water streams among snow­fields and wildflowers. 

Aili Far­qhar Photo

The team was bur­dened by their heavy packs. The hot days and small­er lunchtime appetites of the two climbers made it appar­ent that they had brought more cheese than nec­es­sary. The log­i­cal solu­tion was to make as many que­sadil­las as pos­si­ble. To do this, Aili made a tri­an­gle of sticks and melt­ed the cheese onto tor­tillas over the very pow­er­ful MSR Reac­tor stove. This was a del­i­cate process that usu­al­ly result­ed in the sticks catch­ing on fire, but yield­ed deli­cious cheesy results.

Aili Far­qhar Photo

In the cool of the morn­ing the team climbed over the shoul­der of Stephen Peak onto the rocky ridge above Cream Lake Basin. The mos­qui­toes greet­ed the climbers with great glee at the top of the ridge and hap­pi­ly hung around all day, delight­ed for the warm-blood­ed com­pa­ny. The ridge proved quite a chal­lenge – loose, third-class ledges gave way to grov­el­ing through thick ever­green branch­es of the Ridgetop Krummholtz. Final­ly, Mike and Aili were able to fol­low a ver­i­ta­ble elk high­way to the gen­tle snowfin­gers that led to Upper Fer­ry Basin. 

This camp­site was a delight. A for­mer glac­i­er had become a big, par­tial­ly frozen lake. After set­ting up camp Mike cleaned up in the lake and Aili jumped right in. They dined on olive oil-salmon cous­cous, tea, and gin­ger snaps as the long sum­mer sun­set, reflect­ed in the glac­i­er lake, changed with the set­ting sun. The Milky Way was vis­i­ble in the warm sum­mer night until the bright moon rose. 

Aili Far­qhar Photo

After a rest­ful evening the climbers began their tra­verse of the Bai­ley Range prop­er. They climbed over the shoul­der of Mt. Pulitzer. They spied a lone hik­er climb­ing up from Lone Tree Pass. This mys­tery hik­er must have want­ed soli­tude, and some­how passed by the team as they rest­ed and ate on the upper slopes of Pulitzer. They descend­ed to Lone Tree, where Mike got a shot by the tree that gives the pass its name. They con­tin­ued on the east­ern slopes of the Bai­leys, pass­ing jagged ridges and side-hilling until they reached the mas­sive snow­capped Bear Pass. They found the trail that descends steep heather mead­ows towards Dod­well-Rixon Pass and stopped for water by a love­ly tarn that over­looked Queets Basin. They descend­ed gen­tle snowy slopes until they reached a flat grassy camp­site in an open, bar­ren part of the basin. 

Aili Far­qhar Photo

Mike and Aili set up camp and spent the rest of the after­noon on their own explor­ing the thun­der­ing cas­cades, sun-warmed tarns, rocky out­crop­pings, abun­dant wild­flow­ers, stun­ning glac­i­er views, and fas­ci­nat­ing geol­o­gy of this remote basin which is not accessed by a sin­gle trail. The team also found some sticks lying around the basin, and there­fore deli­cious MSR Reac­tor que­sadil­las were again on the evening menu.

Aili Far­qhar Photo

Aili’s Crocs again came in handy the next morn­ing as the two ford­ed the Queets Riv­er. The first ranger Aili had worked with in the Olympics had once told her that if ever she had route-find­ing dif­fi­cul­ties that ​‘the ani­mals know where to go’. This advice proved cor­rect, and Aili and Mike fol­lowed the ancient trails over which gen­er­a­tions of elk had passed before, through the steep forests and mead­ows lead­ing to the ter­mi­nus of the Humes Glac­i­er. A few times the team had to employ the infa­mous ​‘veg­gie belay’ tech­nique ubiq­ui­tous to Olympic and North Cas­cade off-trail travel. 

They final­ly reached the pol­ished glac­i­er rocks at the base of the Humes. Thou­sands of aphids rose as they wove among slide alder and the wreck­age of an old air­plane to gain the smooth trav­el that the low-angle Humes Glac­i­er pro­vid­ed. The low­er part of the glac­i­er was below the abla­tion zone – the zone in which the pre­vi­ous years snow all melts away – and was there­fore blue ice. Small streams ran over this ice, and run­ning water bur­bled below the glacier’s surface. 

Aili Far­qhar Photo

The team then climbed into the snow and over Bliz­zard Pass. The Hoh Glac­i­er flowed down into blue ice, moraine, then became the thun­der­ing Hoh Riv­er below. They descend­ed steep snow to the island in the sky that is Camp Pan, a small enclave of trees and flat dirt perched on a rocky out­crop a few hun­dred feet above the Hoh Glac­i­er. From this camp­site they enjoyed a long glac­i­er sun­set and anoth­er splen­did moonrise.

Aili Far­qhar Photo

The next day found them again on steep glac­i­ers. They ascend­ed snow to the base of the East Sum­mit of Olym­pus. Fourth and low fifth class loose Olympic rock led them to the sum­mit and through a loose and blocky down­climb to the secu­ri­ty of snow below this sum­mit. When they joined the foot­prints of the reg­u­lar route to the sum­mit of Olym­pus they set a pick­et, clipped off their heavy packs, and took a light pack with food, water, sat phone, and first aid kit and head­ed over the mid­dle sum­mit feel­ing light and fast in pur­suit of the west­ern­most and true sum­mit of Olympus. 

Aili Far­qhar Photo

A steep snow slope and 5.4 rock pitch through a blocky chim­ney led the team to the sum­mit of Olym­pus. On the sev­enth day of the tra­verse, they had reached the ceil­ing of the Olympic Moun­tain Range. They enjoyed pho­tos and a snack as they looked at Bak­er, Rainier, and St. Helens float­ing in the dis­tance. After rap­pelling off the sum­mit block the team made haste back to the packs. As they donned the heavy beasts once again and began to descend they met two Park vol­un­teers going for an evening sum­mit. These vol­un­teers, Dave and Mary Anne, were doing work to keep the Snow Dome research sta­tion in good repair. The team decid­ed to accept the vol­un­teers’ kind offer of pop­corn and a vis­it to the sta­tion and made camp on the shoul­der of Pan­ic Peak on top of Snow Dome.

- MM Guide, Aili Farquhar