April 13 I mounted Ellinor!

My buddies bailed on me Thursday night for our planned tour in the cascades so I seized the carp and took a solo trip to Mt. Ellinor.  I live on the Kitsap Peninsula and yet have never before skied in the Olympics (now I'm an Olympic skier).  Snow on the road stopped me at the lower trail head.  It was raining pretty hard at 9:30 when I arrived at about 2,600ft.  I planned to skin up the road but the coverage was pretty inconsistant and I ended up walking most of the way to the upper trailhead (1.8mi  3,900ft)  I rested in the outhouse to get out of the rain and try to dry out a little (thanks to whom ever left the great pine air freshener, maybe you could bring a couple dozen more).  I continued up the trail through the forest to the winter climbing rout (2.5mi  4,500ft).  Visibility was poor but the rain had turned to snow and I climbed the long chute straight to the top in pretty good time. (3.1mi  5,900ft)  It was windy and cold on top and I was wet so I drank my beer and turned right around.  The ski down was fun.  That's a great long straight fall line chute.  It was crusty on top and hard to purchase an edge, but by the middle it softened and skied real nice.  There were hard frozen death cookies o plenty and I thought of them like oysters; even though they are small, if they are not fresh there best avoided.  Back into the forest and a 2.5mi walk down.  This was the farthest I have ever walked in ski boots and I would suggest approach shoes.  All in all it was a good tour and I look forward to doing more tours in the Olympics.