| Driving along I-215 for years and years, I had contemplated Mount Olympus's North Face, wondering “could it be done (by me)?” From what I had seen on this site and the John Veranth book "Hiking The Wasatch" (HTW), I was emboldened--even so much as to bring a novice hiking companion along to challenge what Veranth appropriately calls “some of the wildest and steepest terrain in the Wasatch.”
Saturday morning, after tennis plans fell through, my newby companion Jen (43, whose first big hike came the Sunday before—The Upper Reservoir of Bell’s Canyon) and I found ourselves with some extra time on our hands. As it turned out, there was not quite enough extra time to take on the North Face and get back down before dark, though.
Starting at 10:30, using HTW and everything good that SummitPost’s PellucidWombat had to write about this climb as a guide to find the starting point, we parked near the big gates of an obviously nice private home (the gated drive to this home eliminated the need to double back to the tank as described in the Wombat’s description). We headed straight up the hill to the South East of the large home’s private driveway. At the top of that hill we seemed to have met the trail. The hike presented an amazing variety of terrain—and tons of scrambling. Following the two published descriptions, we sought out and found a “rock-strewn chute” and continued “up.” In the photo I’ve posted named “NorthFaceCouloir” you can see a short portion of the approx. route taken up the chute as a solid green line and those parts of the hike in the hidden couloir as dashes. Take care where you first enter the concealed couloir as it is easy to hike up the chute too far to the left. There is no entering the couloir anywhere left of the solid green line. The route finding was easy upon entering the couloir and it was simple (tough) hiking from there.
In climbing the North Face, don’t expect to find much in the way of water—going up or coming down. After climbing to the North Summit we dropped into Tolcat Canyon for a not recommended, very rough, bushwacking hike down. I anticipated coming across the seasonal creek much, much earlier than we did; only encountering water with about 90 minutes to go on the descent.
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