Morning's bright golden glow lights the rock towers that loom above the sprawling icefields. That's where you're headed, along with climbing guide Mark Gunlogson, glaciologist Micha Miller, and Host Annie Getchell. Anyplace Wild takes you on a geologic tour of the Olympic Range, where you see firsthand how ice and time have shaped these impressive glacial peaks in Washington's Olympic National Park. You also launch an assault on the park's highest summit. Your climbing rope snakes ahead to your partner, metal hardware clanks, footsteps crunch rhythmically, crampons bite the ice at every step.
Jagged ridges spread in all directions, outlined by a pink predawn glow.
Daylight reveals vast icefields split by deep crevasses, and you're right in the middle of it all, climbing through a world of ice on the slopes of Mt. Olympus, coastal monarch of the Pacific Northwest. High summer to early fall offers your best chance for settled weather. There are about 60 glaciers in Olympic National Park, with Blue Glacier being one of the most visited. It has been under intense scientific study since 1957. The Mt. Olympus complex of glaciers gets an average of 200 inches of precipitation each year, mostly snow.