[b00]

washington+ellinor 5-20-2018

my brilliant plan for the washington to ellinor traverse, was to look over the route possibilities from the top mt washington and see where the snow was. it was a great plan if i say so myself. it only had one minor problem, i forgot x-ray vision glasses, as we spent whole day with zero visibility :<( it started to drizzle before we left the cars, an auspicious start. we were not even sure if we could drive to the trailhead, but that proved to be no issue and as the day rolled on, pretty much all the problems just disappeared except, visibility did not improve. the trail was easy, the snow was easy until about 5500 when it steepened. a party ahead of us was really struggling and clearly were really nice guys and in over their heads. iron took over leading and kicked the steps up. the snow there got firmer(we put on crampons) and steeper. where the party ahead of us zigged in the wrong direction, iron made quick work of teasing out the route and getting us going in the right direction(the other party happily followed). iron made the right direction look obvious, that was not obvious before he showed the way. matt followed iron and spent a really cleaned up the track to make easier for others to follow. at the summit block the two other parties on the route went the standard way, climber's right. but i had been there before and knew the non-intuitive route was much easier. i am not sure why i always read about others having scary or challenging experiences with the summit of mt washington when the easy is actually very easy and very easy to find - just traverse climber's left on easy terrain and then up to summit - all class 2. go figure. well the summit views were non-existent and we spent a bit of time trying do decide what next. we downclimbed the steep section without incident and then decided to give the traverse a try, even though we could not see the route, with the caveat that if the route got difficult, we would bail. we retraced our steps down to 5000' and then iron led a descending traverse, which sort of cliffed out. so turned back around and then tried going uphill, again with iron in the lead. we traversed ~5200' and were on another group's footsteps. i was suspicious about whether the other group knew where they were going. we knew a group weeks before had traversed hundreds of feet below us, but we really could not see if that would be any better than where we were. so, iron kept following the footsteps. we kept checking the maps and gps and we were moving in the right direction. since the traverse really is not that long, we figured just keep going and see what happens as we had plenty of time. next then you know, we following excellent steps on great snow up slope to the ridge in between a and b peaks. even though the slope was 41 degrees, it felt super easy because of the steps and snow quality. we knew once we reached the ridge it would be cruise to ellinor's summit and it was just that. who needs visibility when you have iron! we found the party that kicked the steps at ellinor summit and thanked them. it turns out they did know what they were doing and had done it before numerous times. no wonder the route worked so well. iron thought we could have figure the route out without the footsteps as it seemed obvious. he may have been right, it did seem obvious. the route finding party was quite equipped - rope, two tools, crampons - and were very nice. descent from ellinor was easy, but steeper than i expected. glissading at this time looked like a terrible idea - tons of hazards in the glissade track. fun trip. road to mt wa parking snow free. upper lena parking lot has one short snow patch, that a subaru bravely made it through. ps - thanks matt for driving over from the mt washington parking and waiting for us to do the traverse and then giving us a ride back, saving us a 1.3m road walk. how do you spell nice guy?

5.58mi 4483' gain 3:19 car to washington summit 0:20 summit stay 3:21 washington summit to ellinor summit 0:27 summit stay 1:07 summit to car 8:34 car to car equipment: crampons, ice axe, helmet equipment brought, but not used: rope

[meck]

hey b00, I got to say I really appreciated the boot path iron and the rest of you kicked in, and I'm glad you came along when you all did! I've been up there to that summit 4-5 times before, and across that rock catwalk, but never with a hardpack, steep snow wedge, above that kind of slope! Given my experience level I was ready to call it a day right there and downclimb, the six of you did a nice job punching that path in for us to follow, thanks! Here's a pic of you guys down climbing the snow chute.

[iron]

as a certain fellerini likes to say: same view, different parking spot. good times.

[raising3hikers]

nice job on the traverse and views of underneath a big cloud