- Aug 30, 2001
- 13,483
- 88
- 48
For the last 2 years or so that I've been camping a lot near Lake Crescent on the Olympic Peninsula, I've always wanted to hike Mt. Storm King. I saw some friends' photos from the summit, and read the trail's description and figured it would be grueling but short and maybe a bit sketchy for an inexperienced hiker, but nothing I was worried about. I've got a fair amount of experience hoofing uphill.
We had a group of 5 or so that were down the camping this weekend, so we headed out to the Peninsula on Friday afternoon. As always, bye bye Seattle (and pavement, and fluorescent lighting and suits)!
In this photo, Mt. Storm King is the mountain in the bottom right corner, just above the water. It's located at the south end of Lake Crescent.
We got camp that night and set up and did some adult beverage drinking and busted out a solid few hours of campfire sitting before passing out for the night. The next day we got up, practiced more campfire sitting, ate 2 burgers each, and then proceeded to our destination. Mt. Storm King.
The Storm King trail itself has many different lengths and elevations posted in various places and books, and I'm not really sure what to believe when it comes to how long and steep it is. Based on what I have seen, I'm inclined to believe it's just under 2 miles to to the top and around 1700 feet elevation gain. No matter what the official numbers are, it's STEEP. And it feels longer than it is, although coming down seemed ultra short.
I put my camera away for the ascent, and took it out again at what was initially going to be my stopping point... the "official" summit... once I saw what the trail looked like ahead.
See to the right of the sign where the rocks don't really look like a trail? Yeah, that's the trail. Right on top of a cliff that falls all the way off the mountain. At this point I was sketched out completely, but I ventured up a little further, not wanting to puss out completely. Eventually the trail got way too sketchy and dangerous for me and I stopped without saying anything and let my friends go on. This was the view from where I stopped, just a few paces beyond that sign.
After a couple minutes, a friend yelled for me and I told him I was done, I wasn't going any further. He came back and assured me it wasn't hard, even though what I saw with my own eyes said quite the contrary. Regardless, I got up and moved on behind him.
It wasn't quite as bad as I thought, until we reached the rope and the steep rocky ledge it hung from. I was sort of having second thoughts again, but I sucked it up and grabbed the rope and ventured up. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be. My camera was put away for good at this point. Taking pics right now was the last thing on my mind haha.
Once I reached the top pf the ledge and got on my feet again, I saw the second rope. Ugh. This one was easier than the first though. At the top, a 3rd rope. Holy shit, now I'm just wondering how the hell I'm going to get down from this. I reach the top of the 3rd rope and there's a small amount of room to walk comfortably on that leads you another steep rock ledge with a rope going up. This is the REAL summit of Mt. Storm King.
By now I'm freaked the hell out and I start to go up this last rock face with a rope. For this one though, it was easier to use your hands and feet than the rope, but it was still far sketchier than the others because the drops from either side were fucking staggering and ultra deadly. One wrong move and you fall a looooong ways. I start up and make it maybe 5 feet, to where I can see over the top of the first lil nook and see more narrowness and ridge for about 25 feet and even more steep drops on both sides. It's at this point I said to my friends who were already past that point and on the summit "Hey guys, I'm sorry I can't do this. I have to stay here." They say "OK man, cool" and leave me be.
After sitting at the base of that last little ledge on the top of the mountain for about 10 minutes, I decided I needed to take a piss. I went off in a new direction and found a worthy spot to mark as my own. As I was coming back, I said to myself "OK, ready to stop being a pussy now? This was your idea in the first place, you know..." and I just walked right up to that ledge and hoofed up the shit. About half way there, a friend was coming down with a beer to give me. We have "victory beers" at the top of the summit, every time we hike. They'd had theirs. He was bringing me mine. He was surprised to see me hoofing up on my own. I VERY VERY CAREFULLY made my way to the actual summit where everyone else was and enjoyed my victory beer in the place it was meant to be enjoyed. Not that false lil resting area 50 feet below the real summit.
This one shows about how much room we had to work with at the summit. It was literally straight down from here.
Oh hi Tyler! Facing north now, there's Canada way off in the distance!
I learned that I conquered a fear doing this. I never even knew I was that afraid of heights. I've done my fair share of hiking, but when it come to anything beyond walking to a lookout point, I'm basically inexperienced. I learned on this trip that sometimes one person's explanation of how difficult a trail can be is very different from how you may perceive it. I also learned that when it comes right down to manning up and putting forth the guts to press on, I have what it takes. I've experienced this feeling many times before, but it still seems like I learn again for the first time, every time it happens. I like this because it gives me the confidence that I know I can do something, yet still have the mind to be aware, apprehensive and cautious enough when needed. I was proud of myself for the rest of the weekend.
On the way back down the rock, we came across a couple Camp Robbers. This little fuckerz are pretty cool. They'll land on your hand and eat snacks right out of it if they think they're delicious enough!
Heading back down for good now.
That night we got hammered and then the next morning we had breakfast. This was chorizo with onions, red peppers, camp fire baked potato and scrambled eggs. Under the tin foil is macaroni casserole.
It rained for about 15 minutes on Sunday morning. It was the only rain the entire weekend. On the first day, one of the guys made this rock shrine on the river beach. It looked cool the whole time, but it really stood out in the rain.
We had a group of 5 or so that were down the camping this weekend, so we headed out to the Peninsula on Friday afternoon. As always, bye bye Seattle (and pavement, and fluorescent lighting and suits)!
In this photo, Mt. Storm King is the mountain in the bottom right corner, just above the water. It's located at the south end of Lake Crescent.
We got camp that night and set up and did some adult beverage drinking and busted out a solid few hours of campfire sitting before passing out for the night. The next day we got up, practiced more campfire sitting, ate 2 burgers each, and then proceeded to our destination. Mt. Storm King.
The Storm King trail itself has many different lengths and elevations posted in various places and books, and I'm not really sure what to believe when it comes to how long and steep it is. Based on what I have seen, I'm inclined to believe it's just under 2 miles to to the top and around 1700 feet elevation gain. No matter what the official numbers are, it's STEEP. And it feels longer than it is, although coming down seemed ultra short.
I put my camera away for the ascent, and took it out again at what was initially going to be my stopping point... the "official" summit... once I saw what the trail looked like ahead.
See to the right of the sign where the rocks don't really look like a trail? Yeah, that's the trail. Right on top of a cliff that falls all the way off the mountain. At this point I was sketched out completely, but I ventured up a little further, not wanting to puss out completely. Eventually the trail got way too sketchy and dangerous for me and I stopped without saying anything and let my friends go on. This was the view from where I stopped, just a few paces beyond that sign.
After a couple minutes, a friend yelled for me and I told him I was done, I wasn't going any further. He came back and assured me it wasn't hard, even though what I saw with my own eyes said quite the contrary. Regardless, I got up and moved on behind him.
It wasn't quite as bad as I thought, until we reached the rope and the steep rocky ledge it hung from. I was sort of having second thoughts again, but I sucked it up and grabbed the rope and ventured up. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be. My camera was put away for good at this point. Taking pics right now was the last thing on my mind haha.
Once I reached the top pf the ledge and got on my feet again, I saw the second rope. Ugh. This one was easier than the first though. At the top, a 3rd rope. Holy shit, now I'm just wondering how the hell I'm going to get down from this. I reach the top of the 3rd rope and there's a small amount of room to walk comfortably on that leads you another steep rock ledge with a rope going up. This is the REAL summit of Mt. Storm King.
By now I'm freaked the hell out and I start to go up this last rock face with a rope. For this one though, it was easier to use your hands and feet than the rope, but it was still far sketchier than the others because the drops from either side were fucking staggering and ultra deadly. One wrong move and you fall a looooong ways. I start up and make it maybe 5 feet, to where I can see over the top of the first lil nook and see more narrowness and ridge for about 25 feet and even more steep drops on both sides. It's at this point I said to my friends who were already past that point and on the summit "Hey guys, I'm sorry I can't do this. I have to stay here." They say "OK man, cool" and leave me be.
After sitting at the base of that last little ledge on the top of the mountain for about 10 minutes, I decided I needed to take a piss. I went off in a new direction and found a worthy spot to mark as my own. As I was coming back, I said to myself "OK, ready to stop being a pussy now? This was your idea in the first place, you know..." and I just walked right up to that ledge and hoofed up the shit. About half way there, a friend was coming down with a beer to give me. We have "victory beers" at the top of the summit, every time we hike. They'd had theirs. He was bringing me mine. He was surprised to see me hoofing up on my own. I VERY VERY CAREFULLY made my way to the actual summit where everyone else was and enjoyed my victory beer in the place it was meant to be enjoyed. Not that false lil resting area 50 feet below the real summit.
This one shows about how much room we had to work with at the summit. It was literally straight down from here.
Oh hi Tyler! Facing north now, there's Canada way off in the distance!
I learned that I conquered a fear doing this. I never even knew I was that afraid of heights. I've done my fair share of hiking, but when it come to anything beyond walking to a lookout point, I'm basically inexperienced. I learned on this trip that sometimes one person's explanation of how difficult a trail can be is very different from how you may perceive it. I also learned that when it comes right down to manning up and putting forth the guts to press on, I have what it takes. I've experienced this feeling many times before, but it still seems like I learn again for the first time, every time it happens. I like this because it gives me the confidence that I know I can do something, yet still have the mind to be aware, apprehensive and cautious enough when needed. I was proud of myself for the rest of the weekend.
On the way back down the rock, we came across a couple Camp Robbers. This little fuckerz are pretty cool. They'll land on your hand and eat snacks right out of it if they think they're delicious enough!
Heading back down for good now.
That night we got hammered and then the next morning we had breakfast. This was chorizo with onions, red peppers, camp fire baked potato and scrambled eggs. Under the tin foil is macaroni casserole.
It rained for about 15 minutes on Sunday morning. It was the only rain the entire weekend. On the first day, one of the guys made this rock shrine on the river beach. It looked cool the whole time, but it really stood out in the rain.
It sounded like one hell of a weekend.
