[TR] Washington Ellinor Traverse - Traverse from W

[RJRiha]

Trip: Washington Ellinor Traverse - Traverse from Washington to Ellinor

 

Date: 4/25/2007

 

Trip Report:

I have had a long desire to pull off the Washington-Ellinor Traverse. Finally had a chance to do it. We got just past the lower Ellinor trailhead at about 9:30AM (late start). The climb up Washington was enjoyable and the weather was cooperating quite nicely, but we didnt actually reach the summit(not that either of us hadn't been there before). Maybe it wasnt the true, complete traverse, but as it was about 1:30 by the time we reached the Washington route 1 headwall and the weather was turning, we wanted to get on route as quickly as possible.

 

Anyway, about the climb. We walked below the route 1 headwall to the notch off to the left. The first chute encountered was the first of many with bad, possibly fatal runouts so we roped up and set a few pickets on the traverse of this chute. We stayed below the large rock formations until there looked to be a good, clean shot up to the ridge. Upon reaching the ridge we realized that it was corniced and had lots of loose rock with pretty bad drops on both sides. Not a good sign so we stayed just below the east side of the ridge until we reached a chute just right of a large, 2 peaked rock formation. After ascending the chute, we decided to stay as true to the route as possible and stayed just under the corniced ridge which meant more pickets (so the going was slow).

 

We started to see 3 large, very steep snow slopes(appeared to be about 50-55 degrees) as the route dropped into a large bowl between large rock formations (I believe these were A peak and B peak). The direct route between these peaks appeared to be fairly heavily corniced so we decided to go around the southeast side of A peak. The route didnt "go" any further on the southeast side, so we climbed up the southeast ridge to top off just under A peak. The climbing was enjoyable as there was pretty good exposure and very solid windpacked snow. We then traversed under B peak and had one more slope to climb until we were on Ellinor.

 

Once we reached Ellinor, all the snow deposited during the climb was starting to build up. We started to notice debris from small avalanches, so we wound down through the small rock cliffs to the right of the Ellinor chute to avoid going up through the steeper summit area where we were concerned about possible avalanche activity. To avoid taking off the rope and setting rappels, we slung a few trees and simulclimbed down into the flat area below the summit. The summer route was the least probable for avalanche as you can wind through the trees and below large rock formations, but we did travel right through the biggest slope of fresh avalanche debris seen yet to reach the bottom of the chute (I was surprised at the size of the debris field as it was only about a 20 degree slope...glad we didnt take the steeper chute down). A quick trip down to the car and we were rewarded with a tasty sandwich and Full Sail Session Lagers.

 

All in all it was an exciting trip with just enough spice to make it fun. Once on the traverse the wind was whipping hard, with alot of snow and freezing rain...starting of course after we were committed to finishing the climb. Unfortunately the weather didnt permit any pictures as visibility was low.

 

10 hours car to car.

 

Gear Notes:

4 pickets (used 3), rope, axes. Crampons would have been nice on some of the wind packed slopes.

 

Approach Notes:

1/2 hour hike from car to Mt. Washington Trail

Edited April 27, 2007 by malcolm777b

[bremerton_john]

Excellent! Way to go fellas. Seems every couple years some folks give that traverse a try in "winter" conditions. Great job.