"Fantastic 2 day trip in the Needles of Olympic. Hiked solo on a warm Tuesday up to the famous tarn in upper Royal basin and set up camp. Enjoyed most of the afternoon relaxing lakeside with a couple of brews. Sean got in late and we got some rest for the next big day. Arose at 530 to get an early start. The off trail walk up to the Surprise basin was the loosest and worst part of the day. We dropped down on to the surprise glacier and made our way up to the top of the basin. No crampons we're necessary this time of year. We found a good entrance ramp to get onto Johnson and then scrambled our way up towards Sweat spire. We snaked around to the right of gasp pinnacle to keep at class 3 until we made it to the base of the spires. Sean solo'd up gasp but I was not down without a rope. After he climbed down he led the 5.6 pitch up Sweat placing 9 Peaces of pro. The climb was good and the views were phenomenal with only room for 2. After the rappel off we made our way to Johnson's class 4 chimney. We both solo'd up the summit block and found a register on top, pretty rare for the Olympics. We carefully climbed down and made the long walk back to camp. After relaxing at the tarn for a go..." — MatthewWinterberg • Aug 28, 2019