Mt Washington Olympics 7 24

In July we set out for the Olympics to climb Mt Washington, and attempt to traverse over to Ellinor. We wanted to spice things up further, by attempting the ridge traverse variation, which stays high on the rocky spine between the two mountains. There were limited trip reports or beta on this variation so that left us with a good amount of unknowns.
The climb up to Mt Washington was very steep and while there was a "trail" most of the way, we often found ourselves off route, and this made the climb longer and more challenging, but also a fun adventure! The summit of Washington gave us some epic panoramic views. From there we back tracked off the summit block and then gained the ridge at the feature known as "The Wedge" (in the video I called this "the fin") This was one of the most fun parts of the ridge with good rock and relatively easy class 4 climbing but intense exposure. From the top of The Wedge, things got more tricky and the rock quality became very poor. We roped up and carefully picked our way through a difficult and time consuming down climbing traverse using what we could for terrain belays to mitigate the risk from the serious exposure and terrible rock. After several "pitches" of this, we put the rope away and scrambled up and down pinnacles along the spine of the ridge with varying rock quality and difficulty from class 3 up to low 5th. Eventually we reached a point where we could not stay on the ridge and had to drop down some very loose class 4. At this point we decided to build a rappel anchor and bail off the ridge. Knowing this may be a reality, we were prepared for this. From there we decided to drop down to gain the standard Washington - Ellinor Traverse route far below. The terrain was still difficult and slow going. By the time we reached the normal route it was nearly sunset, so rather then going back up Ellinor to regain the trail, we decided it would be best to just bushwhack in a downward traverse and regain the trail. This was a terrible idea! Although it was only about 3 miles, the forest was insanely steep and thick with cliff bands running all throughout. The going was miserably difficult and slow, especially in the dark. After many hours and most of our light sources dying, we decided it would be best to hunker down for the night and wait for the light of dawn. We never were able to traverse across to regain the trail and so we end up just dropping straight down until we hit the road, then walked up to the trailhead. overall it took us more then 6 hours of moving time to go about 3 miles. It was awful!
Its hard for me to recommend this variation due to the very poor rock quality, but if it is something you want to attempt, plan more time then you think you will need!

[@jaredempey5706]

This looked so hard. After this one and Mount Stuart, I am glad that you have not quit mountains. Every time I suffer hard on a peak, I I always wonder why I didn't take up golf. Ha Ha. Great video.

[@DurhamRosser]

I love you guys. I dont comment on any posts but three years ago i watched a video of y'all climbing hood and then I made the summit a week later and have been l hooked ever since. Thank you for sharing your videos.

[@garymcgee1874]

That young lady is awesome I would go climbing with her any day.

[@johngo6283]

4:30. “and as usual, this got spicier than we expected.” That seems to describe most of your trips, from what I’ve seen.