Ellinor is open and in great condition!
The road to the upper trailhead is doable for any car, but there is one small gnarly section right before the upper parking lot. It was fine going up in a Subaru Outback but I chose the wrong route going back down and scraped the bottom of my car.
The lot was full when we showed up around noon on a Wednesday but there is extra parking along the road. The trailhead pit toilet is pretty clean right now as well.
Elevation starts immediately and then transitions into some switchbacks until you hit the junction for the Summer and Winter route. As you climb out of the tree line fall foliage starts popping up around the trail. It's not peak yet but the colors are nice. And the temperatures at this time of year are perfect for the steep climb. The breeze was nice.
I believe the Mount Rose Trail Crew has added more stairs since I last climbed Ellinor a few years ago. Some sections that I remember being slightly slippery gravel now have stairs! Most of the trail past the tree line has stairs and they've done an amazing job building them. I've never seen Ellinor in such good condition.
Smoke from the remnants of Bear Gulch was nonexistent except for a few small patches dispersed throughout the mountains past the end of Lake Cushman.
There are small patches of snow on either side of the trail as you near the summit but the trail itself is dry and we did not need our micro spikes. There's still some snow sitting in the shadows of the mountains which added an extra feature to the views below the summit.
We saw very few people and everyone was following trail etiquette (other than a few off-leash dogs). Go now before the real snow hits!
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