Jump to content

[TR]Mount Washington


Fairweather

Recommended Posts

Climbed Mount Washington today. We were able to drive all the way to the summer trailhead at 3100 feet! Unbelievable. Just a bit of snow on the road at the lower Ellinor trailhead and beyond, then mostly dry/muddy roadbed. Passable in an ordianry car.

 

The trail is about 50% snow and 50% dry to the first meadow. Mostly dry up the talus field above. The upper meadow is mostly covered with snow, but it is very thin and will vanish soon without replenishment.

 

The climb does not go up the main gully as this is mostly dry and rock-banded. Instead, it goes up the first gully east and up a short 4th class rock step to the left of the summer route. The traverse across the ledge leading up to the summit ridge is covered with snow that is downsloping at a 45 degree angle just above a long drop. A fall here would not be good. The summit ridge is mostly snow covered, but not corniced. The summit block ledge is dry, but the gully above is snow-filled and icy in a couple spots. Nice views of all the Olympic peaks! The interior summits appear to have more snow cover than the eastern side of the range. Olympus, Anderson, were very white. Constance, Brothers, Royal Basin peaks looked very dry.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 11
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

What the F%$@. Why...I placed it there only 8 months ago. Why do people keep removing the registers off Washington? Why would anybody have a problem with a summit log.

Anyway nice shots. I flew over the Oly Mnts today the north section of the park is extreemly bare. Only Olympus and Anderson looked healthy with snow. Saw some ski tracks on ellinor, looked rather icy. Ill post pics later.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey great pics! I was up on Ellinor the same day and it was beautiful. The climb was great, we climbed the chute but there is no glissade(Except very very short sections). There is snow at the top of the chute but its really hard. The summit is the same as Washington, snow but no cornices. The glissade from the summit is still really good. We went down the summer route but it is muddy and the path has a lot of 2-3 inches hard ice from all the traffic(we saw probably 30 people over the day and all were on the summer route). If I had it to do over again we would have down climbed the chute. Still a great day on Ellinor, in a few months Im going back for the Washington to Ellinor Traverse!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.




×
×
  • Create New...