Trip Report
Alpine Scramble - Mount Ellinor & Mount Washington
Successful snow scramble (Mt. Ellinor only), hit near perfect weather window, great view to Hood Canal, nice glissade, bumpy in part.
- Sun, Apr 30, 2017
- Alpine Scramble - Mount Ellinor & Mount Washington
- Mount Ellinor & Mount Washington
- Scrambling
- Successful
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- Road suitable for all vehicles
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Road snow free to lower TH at 2600 ft, Lots of potholes on FS road 24, FS 2419 in good shape. Many people on our day, approx. 40-50 cars at parked at TH and road below. Snow on trail from 2900 ft. Above the Meadow, snow was sufficiently "stepped", micro spikes were sufficient. Some small avalanche debris below steeper sections made for bumpy glissade. Our route (standard for winter) was not as indicated on the map: we reached the summit turning W from the col.
This was a competent and strong group. Students (8) well rounded. Start at 9:15 from TH, back by 3:30 pm, 6:15hrs car to car. Total 6 miles, 3300ft elevation gain. There were many scramblers going up in the glissade chute, from below almost an "Everest-like" picture. Crowds at the summit. Never-the-less, the climb went well. Had some food at the col, enjoying the view over Hood Canal to N and E. At that time, the initially almost clear sky got partly clouded, with some white and black clouds at lower level, making a spectacular scenery. Then continued to summit, only light wind up there. Light snow falling as we returned to the col, precip had stopped as we reached bottom of glissade chute. The snow in the chute was soft enough to facilitate safe speed control by ice axe also in steep sections. We all enjoyed very much this scramble and the glissade in particular. There were quite a few bumps in the chute causing some 5ft near vertical drops. Most of us celebrated the day with hamburgers at a joint in Hoodsport.