Traverse to South Summit

Mount Olympus is a great training ground for moving fast on mildly technical terrain (and harder, if you do a route like "Valhalla") in the mountains. I'm always impressed at the complexity of the mountain and its various routes, so close to the city.

So if you've ever wanted to extend your day and get more super fun, exposed scrambling on great, solid rock after finishing the West Slabs or Kamp's Ridge, consider dropping a shuttle at the Wasatch Boulevard TH and continuing up to the N summit after topping out Kamp's or West Slabs and then making the fantastic traverse to the south summit.

Doing so greatly extends the amount of scrambling you get to do, especially if coming from the West Slabs. There is still a surprising amount of good scrambling to do on a fun ridge to get to the N summit from the slabs, and from there you simply turn your sights south and go up and over a series of plates that form a few sub summits standing between you and the true summit.

The views are spectacular and the position enjoyable. There is some thoughtful, exposed downclimbing and no fixed rappels.

The crux is dependent on how you choose to ascend and descend, but the final downclimb before the scramble up the summit headwall felt like the crux to me as it is a touch overhanging and airy. YMMV.

This route is listed on summitpost as "Traverse of the Goddesses," though that name came from the poster.

From the N summit of Olympus start climbing and downclimbing the sub summits until you reach a large col and a big headwall that will be the final scramble to the true summit. From there I take the standard hiker's trail down which deposits you at the TH on Wasatch Boulevard.

DESCENT: Hike down the standard trail from the summit to the TH on Wasatch Boulevard, ~3.5 miles.

Trad gear, if you want it.