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Kamp's Ridge on Mt. Olympus

John Sigmon

• 4 min read
Kamp's Ridge on Mt. Olympus

Overview

I am currently laid up from surgery and thought this would be a good time to finish up some posts on earlier adventures. On June 10, 2022 Julie Jung and I set out in the morning to climb Kamp's Ridge on Mt. Olympus to the north summit, traverse to the south summit, and take the hiking trail back to our pre-placed car shuttle.

  • We started moving up Neff's Canyon at 7:47 AM, finishing at 1:51 PM in 6 hours and 4 minutes.
  • We logged 6.31 miles and 3,638 ft of elevation gain

Splits

  • The approach to the base of the ridge- 1h20m
  • The ridge to the north summit- 2h15m
  • Traversing from the north summit to the south summit- 1h10m
  • Descending from the south summit to the hiking trailhead- 1h20m
Kamps Ridge! - John S.’s 6.3 mi run
Beautiful day, hot Little delays downclimbing to south summit and pooping. 2.5 L of water and ran out just short of south summit. Creek still running. A 50 M rope couldve avoided a spicy downclimb on the traverse.
Strava

Trip Report

We weren't sure what to expect so we took a light rack and rope to simul-climb the crux sections. The crux turned out fine but there was a pretty sketchy and exposed downclimb on the way to the south summit where we were both happy to have the rope.

Our rack for the day, minus the #1 that we left in the car

Heading up Neff's canyon was nice, until about this point. We bushwhacked a little here, then went up the wrong way, followed by an epically bad emergency poo where I lost my sunglasses. Great start!

Gaining sight of the ridge

We found a bit of a saddle that allowed some easy traversing up to the base of the ridge.

Moving around some rocks
The bushes we whacked through before gaining the ridge in the background

We gained the ridge just a tiny bit high. Kamp's forms a few smaller ridges that join together into a single ridgeline near the top. We think we hopped on just one sub-ridge too far to the south, although the way we went worked out perfectly fine. The bottom is pretty brushy and at times loose.

Up on the bottom of the ridge
About halfway up we moved over to gain the unified ridge.
View to the north from a nice belay
Olympus cove and downtown SLC in the background about halfway up

We simul-climbed through the crux section pretty quickly. We felt our rack was perfect for a 30 meter rope, allowing us to always have 2 super solid pieces. If I hopped on again I'd probably solo it but if there's a question it's always better to me to have the rope and not need it.

The crux felt much more solid in terms of rock quality, and felt right on for 5.5 or 5.6 compared to other routes of the same grade in Big Cottonwood Canyon. It also felt on par with the bottom of the West Slabs route in terms of difficulty.

Cruising through the top

We were nice and toasty by the time we reached the summit.

North summit selfie
Looking to the northeast down one of the Memorial Couloirs

The scramble down into the last notch to the north of the south summit proved a tad dicey and there was a rappel but we didn't particularly like the setup or the rope pull. We down-led about 20 feet of exposed and sketchy climbing that felt 5.6-5.7 ish. This took us to the base of the south summit which was a nice scramble to the top.

Final notch on the summit traverse, looking at the north face of the south summit
Getting down to the last notch in the traverse
Cool lighting on the scramble to the south summit
The view to the south from the south summit

From there we jogged down nice and easy. Julie was recovering from Lasik so we took our time so she didn't take a spill. Although it was hot we made it back to the car just fine.

I'd definitely hop on this again and possibly link with another one of Olympus's ridges. Great day out above the city!

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