Mount Washington to Ellinor Traverse
Mount Washington to Ellinor Traverse GPX
After climbing Mount Stone and The Brothers the two days prior, I had my sights set on Mount Washington. While Mount Washington is a great objective in it’s own right, it was lacking in stats to make this peak even a half day climb. My wife, Liz had traversed from Washington to Ellinor, staying mostly on the ridge and said it was really fun and simple…… She is a serial sandbagger :)
I asked my friend Wyatt Mullen if he was keen on joining, having just climbed/skied the Emmons on Rainier the day before…. Not surprisingly, he sounded excited and said he would meet me at the trailhead at 8AM. Wyatt certainly has an infinite supply of energy.
We parked our car at the Mount Washington trail, as we wanted to descend/run the mellow hiking trail off Ellinor. We packed light: minimal snacks, a liter of water, running vests, a jacket and aluminum crampons. The trail up Washington is short and STEEP! It gains 3000’ of elevation in just 2 miles. In just an hour and some change, we were on the summit looking at a very intimidating ridgeline to Ellinor.
The ridgeline looking towards Mount Ellinor.
We both had our hesitations, the ridge certainly looks loose, improbable and downright spooky. We dropped off the summit of Washington and traversed the first section to an awesome looking ‘wedge’ section. It was as great as it looked, low 5th class positive holds for about 150’.
The initial ‘Wedge’.
The best climbing on the ridge!
After the wedge, it was continuous 4th class scrambling on the ridge. Occasionally the rock would force us to the right or left of the true crest. It always seemed as we would be cliffed out by improbable down climbing, but we were easily able to find weaknesses each time.
Staying on the crest was a blast!
There was a single spot where the climbing became rather unpleasant due to the looseness of the rock. This section wasn’t difficult, just a little heads-up.
The weird & loose downclimbing section.
The loose down climb section took as to the col between two peaks. It was obvious to us both that the rest of the ridge was going to be too difficult and loose to climb without a rope, so we dropped into a basin and re-climbed a steep snow finger to the ridge underneath Ellinor.
From here, it was an easy trek up the winter route of Ellinor to the summit. We joined the masses of people enjoying their summit of Mount Ellinor. It was certainly a nice view, but we both preferred the view on Washington to Ellinor.
Wyatt with his best friend (camera) and Lake Cushman below.
We took the summit route down to the Ellinor trailhead and ran back to the car. It was a great half-day adventure and a highly recommended traverse for someone who is comfortable on low 5th class alpine rock.
