Mount Ellinor — Thursday, Dec. 28, 2023

If you like walking through soggy wet mashed potatoes, then now is the time to go. I thought I could get lucky and somehow get above the rain clouds, but it rained the entire time between the lower trailhead and the summit. I took the summer route as snow becomes consistent above 4300’ and there were no signs of wet slab avalanches around. I did t try it but I would think people could park at the upper trailhead given the snow line and warm temperatures. The “snow” was saturated with rain and snowmelt down to ~3”, but there was a consolidated crust layer to kick into during the final summit push above 5500’ (past the last open face traverse). No views at the top, so I ate my summit sando and scurried back down to lower trailhead (car2car in about 3.5 hours). Very windy and very wet conditions, make sure to bring spikes and dry layers!