Mount Ellinor — Friday, Feb. 2, 2024

Road has many more potholes than usual once you make the right turn at Cushman. Road is bare to the lower trailhead, and with the exception of about 20 yards of snow on the last hill before the upper trailhead, the road is completely bare. I parked at the upper trailhead, which had no snow. There was no snow on the trail until just before the summer winter junction. I chose to take the summer route Even though there were no tracks that direction because I figured the winter chute would be sketchy. I made it all the way to the large staircase where I decided to turn around because I could barely see anything with the fog, and there was obviously some avalanche activity dumping snow at the bottom of the staircase. I didn’t think I would need my snowshoes but really could’ve used them because the snow just kept getting deeper. It seemed like about 18 inches of powder on top of a good crust, but when I broke through it was up to my waist. On the way down I trekked down the winter route a bit but without snowshoes it was some miserable walking. I got far enough just to take a picture of the winter chute if anybody else was considering it. It’s either a person in the picture at the very top or Sasquatch, I couldn’t tell. I’m not sure if I would’ve attempted, just didn’t seem like enough snow to not bounce off the rocks on the way down if you slip.