Mt. Ellinor beta

Anyone try Mt. Ellinor recently?  Or would any Ellinor gurus like to weigh in on how it should be this weekend, given the current forecast ?

One guy I talked to about a week ago said he'd heard the chute had pretty thin coverage lately.

The USFS PDF on the route talks about the winter/summer route, and says to not do the winter route, the chute, in summer, so as to not damage fragile alpine veg.  What about doing the summer route in winter, to avoid avy danger (for times when there is much) in the chute?

I've hiked to the top of Ellinor at least three times, but all of them were over 10 years ago, so my memory of the route is sketchy at best.  I think all three times were in sping time, via the chute...

Anyone try Mt. Ellinor recently?  Or would any Ellinor gurus like to weigh in on how it should be this weekend, given the current forecast ?

One guy I talked to about a week ago said he'd heard the chute had pretty thin coverage lately.

The USFS PDF on the route talks about the winter/summer route, and says to not do the winter route, the chute, in summer, so as to not damage fragile alpine veg.  What about doing the summer route in winter, to avoid avy danger (for times when there is much) in the chute?

I've hiked to the top of Ellinor at least three times, but all of them were over 10 years ago, so my memory of the route is sketchy at best.  I think all three times were in sping time, via the chute...

Sorry about the last minute reply. I would by no means consider myself a ellinor guru, but I was up Tuesday Feb 7th. I had to park (~2200' elevation) at about about 2 mi below the "middle" trailhead (~3000'). I ascended up the partially forested knoll since the beginning part of the ascent following the stream still had branches exposed (let me know if clarification is needed, am not a guru at describing either). I would honestly stay out of the winter chute and below the treeline with the forecast. As for the summer route, given the strong WSW wind direction some pretty good cornices can form above the area where the summer route crosses the SE face of Ellinor.

The treed area that trail ascends into from the upper trailhead had some coverage, but even downed trees were not covered completely as of last Tuesday and the first 300' of the trail had lots of brown showing. I hiked down from about 4300' since skiing seemed like more trouble than it was worth. I am not sure if the recent fall we had would be enough to smooth it out and make tree skiing in the area worth it.

As for the chute, it has filled in enough for fun skiing from top to bottom, but there are a few choke areas where the boot pack gets in the way (if you have a lot of mountaineers ascending the chute as happened last week).

I hope this helps out some, and if anyone has other thoughts, I would love to hear them too. But I would personally avoid Ellinor this weekend.

-Justin

Nope, never did do it that weekend, after we saw the forecast shape up into what it became.   Tragic weekend.

Anyway, thanks for the info though.  And give a holler (you or whomever else) if you want to try Ellinor, Townsend, or other Oly Mts some time!