Mount Ellinor Glissade... sorta

I made it to the summit of Mount Ellinor again today but this is the first time that I've gone up the chute route, the summit route is still too snowy and I wanted to do the famous glissade down the mountain. But I got spooked, the glissade was too fast for me and I was all alone on the top of the mountain since I got a late start and everyone else had already hiked down. I did not feel safe alone up there with all the slick melting out snow, fog, tree wells and steep slopes. I did a bit of glissading and got out of control and had to self arrest with my ice axe. This is the first time I've had to do an emergency self arrest. My ice axe is my best friend now.

I just wanted to get down from the mountain after that. I did find a few places to glissade that felt safe but there was no thrill in it.

I cut my hand and hurt my shoulder when I had to grab for a tree branch to keep myself from sliding down the mountain. Other people I saw were also walking down rather then glisadding so I was not the only chicken on the trail today.


I'm so sore. I'm glad that I'm sore though, it means that I got a good work out and hopefully will be in good enough shape to summit Mount Deseret in Utah next week.

Upper South Fork Skokomish

I threw out my back and was not able to hike for weeks and then when my back healed I caught a nasty cold and was unable to hike for another couple of weeks.

Yesterday I finally made it out hiking again and I am out of shape. I went 8 miles round trip, that was as far as my body wanted to go.

I'm trying to get in shap for a hike I want to do in Utah, I've got a lot of catching up to do now!

Sunday I'm going to tackle Mount Elinor and hopefully get to do the famous glissade down.

Upper South Fork Skokomish trail is a pretty trail that is basically unreachable half of the year when they close the wildlife gate 4 miles from the trailhead. You could do a road walk to the trail head but it's not really a pretty walk. It's a dirt road lined with skinny second or maybe even third growth "forest".

There is a fair amount of old grown on the actual trail and elk sightings are common. I stopped at start up creek. I just did not have the energy to take my shoes off and wade across the creek where the trail crosses it.