Mount Ellinor — Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025

Olympic National Forest shrank the Bear Gulch closure area on October 7, and Mt Ellinor is no longer included in it. Despite the cloudy weather, I took my dog to the upper trailhead for an afternoon hike. When we arrived, there were a few cars in the lot, and none were parked at the lower trailhead.

I love this portion of the peninsula, and so I was both nervous and anxious to visit it after the closure. Because of today’s clouds, I saw no signs of the Bear Gulch fire. Instead, Mt Ellinor from the upper trailhead felt and looked like it often does during fall: a leg burner from the start, low visibility from the clouds, but beautiful and quiet. The rocks underfoot were slick, but we took our time and didn’t have any issues.

It misted on us a bit, but I only wore my raincoat for the second half of the hike (when I wasn’t sweating as much!). The summit was clouded over, but on our way back down, the clouds cleared for a few minutes and we had great views of Lake Cushman. Our short outing took us about two hours. Glad I was able to visit Ellinor before snow starts making the summit route less accessible.