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crabio Member
Joined: 07 Nov 2007 Posts: 328 | TRs | Pics Location: Bremerton, WA. |
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crabio
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Sun Aug 15, 2010 1:23 pm
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I've wanted to tackle Mount Washington for a long long time and Timmie finally relented and said he'd go with me.
This is one that if you have never been before, it's nice to have a second set of eyes. You'll definitely need your route finding skills on this one.
Early morning look at Mount Washington
Drive toward the Mount Elinor TH. Drive past the Lower TH parking. You'll then get to the sign that points left up toward the Elinor TH. Drive about 100 feet past that sign (don't go up, just go straight) and park off the side of the road.
The TH is a big friggin rock !
Yes, that is the trailhead
I'm not sure there is one flat spot on this climb. That's right. This is not a hike. It's a climb.
And yes, that is the "trail" This looks like its gonna be nothing but fun Timmie coming up More "trail". More like a ladder. Working our way up Up Up Up
The climb is easy to follow in places ... tougher in others.
Taking a break in the shade A little face wipe .... ... and we're off again. Manuvering Up we go Like a kid in a candy store
We were constantly saying ... "Do you see it ???" ... "Oh here it is !!!"
Crossed a dry creek and broke out into a meadow.
Mount Elinor The bugs in this section were brutal
After the meadow, more route finding was required.
Yep ... that's the trail Starting to break out into views Another fun section At least I thought so Not too sure about Timmie though
We did find that there were a lot of sections where one person would go up and the other would wait for fear of falling rocks. Next time on this climb I will bring along a rock climbing helmet.
My attempt at art
Then we came to a pretty large loose scree field. This one gets a little dicey. Could tell that we were gonna have to get to the other side.
Approaching the scree field I made it up first. Timmie follows While I wait for Timmie, I thought I'd take in the views. Meanwhile ... back on the scree field Still working his way up
Once we got to the top, had to traverse across to get to the other side.
Now to traverse across the top Uh Oh ... Get ready to say bye bye to Timmie ! Bye Bye Timmie !!!!!! Ahhh ... he's fine !
We took a wrong turn and ended up having to climb this little tiny gully. Very very narrow and pretty wet.
Dont just stand there taking pictures of me. Get up here ! Yep ... let's go up that. Made a wrong turn and ended up going up this gully More trail We are DEFINITLY not on the route anymore ... but god forbid we turn around. Nope. Crabio never turns around. Just muscle through the brush ! See ? I knew we'd end up breaking out into something !
Now were were at the basin. Incredible views and yes. More route finding.
Crabio and Mount Washington This could be a postcard for the Olympic Mountains This is why they call it Mount Washington. Can you see Washingtons profile ?
Once we climbed out of the basin, the "trail" pretty much disappears. We probably spent an hour and a half going up ... dead ending ... coming back down.
Timmie decided to take a break and enjoy the views and I decided to see if I could see any semblance of a route to the summit.
Now to find the way to the summit. Lake Cushman
Let's go look
Crabio looks for the way to the top Hmmmmm ...... Its gotta be around here somewhere Nope ... nothing over here.
I found nothing ... and decided to play some.
I had to try my hand at glissading Perfect !
Then we decided to head home. Right before we headed down, I spotted a spot that looked like a route so I took a detour and sure enough, there it was. It looked like there was probably another 45 minutes of climbing and we had already wasted a lot of time route finding. We decided to head down now that we knew where the route was and we could come back and do the summit on another day.
Besides ... we still had 2 hours of down climbing fun ahead of us !!!!
Time to head home but do we REALLY have to cross that snow field ?
This has to be one of the most fun climbs I have ever done. I am definitly going back soon. Sometime this year for SURE !!!!!!!!!!!!!
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crabio Member
Joined: 07 Nov 2007 Posts: 328 | TRs | Pics Location: Bremerton, WA. |
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crabio
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Sun Aug 15, 2010 6:25 pm
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HJT wrote: | What did you have to bribe Timmie with to get him to finally relent in going? |
No bribery .. at least none that I'm aware of yet. I think there was a dose of guilt laid on there tho.
Although, guilting your friends into dangerous activities is a great way to lose friends.
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Magellan Brutally Handsome
Joined: 26 Jul 2006 Posts: 13116 | TRs | Pics Location: Inexorable descent |
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Magellan
Brutally Handsome
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Sun Aug 15, 2010 9:15 pm
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Hurry back, you had not even got to the fun part yet. I don't know if we would have summited without following some other dudes through the upper basin. Even then I took a wrong turn.
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turnpikegates Member
Joined: 05 Dec 2007 Posts: 20 | TRs | Pics Location: Seattle |
The small gulley you list as being off route looks familiar to me, to the point that I think you may have been closer to on-route than you realize.
The first trip I made up there was in zero visibility and we got confused looking for the headwall above the upper basin. Part way up the trail, you come out of trees in front of a small rock band and should head right. Something tells me this is the small gulley you mentioned. We took this for the headwall and headed left and had to perform some terrifying "Olympic 4th Class" moves to get up and out of a stream drainage before traversing at around 5000 feet into the upper basin.
The second trip I made, we were able to stay on route to the summit and had great views before continuing over to Ellinor and back to the cars. Half the reason we did the traverse was just to avoid going back down the Mt. WA trail.
Nice job on the trip, it's a steep one for sure.
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