Strava GPS here - 18.67 miles, 8,806 feet
Mount Constance features prominently in the skyline of the Olympics as seen from Seattle, so it burrowed its way into my set of objectives after 16 years regardless of the nature of the route to its summit. I was fortunate to amass a crew including three other middle-aged, liked-minded Dads still fit and stubborn enough to join me for taking it on.
Our rough estimate was 12-13 hours, which meant getting out there the night before was necessary. Thankfully, we were able to leave town around 7:30pm and catch the 8:20pm ferry from Edmonds to Kingston, reaching the end of the road around 10pm. We set up tents and conked out, alarms set for 4:45am. It was a nice, crisp night for sleeping with a beautiful window of stars above us.
At 5:25am, we started riding up the closed road on a hodgepodge of gravel and mountain bikes under headlamps, making pretty good time despite the darkness and the 1,000 feet of climbing over nearly 5 miles to the start of the trail. From here, we somehow got off trail immediately, vertically schwacking up the hillside until we came to our senses and realized the trail was off to our right in the gully. A brief descent made more exciting by angering a few bees in the process got us onto the trail as daybreak arrived. Having been through that, the trail seemed especially civilized, with quintessential Olympic-style mossy trees and boulders. We thoroughly enjoyed our shinrin-yoku “forest bath” as the Japanese call it.
Things were pretty uneventful up to Lake Constance, which we reached at about 8:15am, a little under 3 hours after we’d started. We curled around the lake and stopped briefly to fill up our water at the cleanest spot we could find, surrounded by bad-smelling scum. From here, the going got slower and slower. First on talus and then onto scree as we headed up toward the Rabbit Ears, thankfully in the shade to this point. I was prepared for scree but was honestly surprised at how hard it was to find decent footing for much of the way. It was also a bit demoralizing after finishing the first long section of scree to traverse over only to find quite a bit more of it.
We endured this second section in the sun, a brief, loose descent on which all of us became intimate with dirt at least once, and then another loose ascent before we were finally on more solid rock. This brought us over to a cairn just below the ridge crest which beckoned us toward the Finger Traverse. We’d done enough research to know it was probably fine to scramble, but we’d decided to bring an ultralight rope and a few cams with alpine harnesses just to be safe. This worked well. I plugged in a cam and set off around the airy corner. Only one or two moves had any moments of pause and I was quickly on the other side, romping across the slab with great hands and slabby feet. The exposure reduced quickly. I set up a belay and brought the other guys across at about noon.
From here, we stared at the summit, all wishing that a direct ridgeline traverse would be doable since the Key Traverse looked so steep and loose. The further we went, the more it seemed the ridge or subsequent gullies would be a gamble while the standard route looked more and more reasonable. Once we had descended all the way to it, the traverse was trivial.
From here, it was still a bit of effort to corkscrew all the way up and around the summit to reach a final scramble on the North side. We pulled these moves and took in the views of the Sound, Hood Canal, and Rainier as well as Olympus at about 1pm, so roughly 7.5 hours up. Slower than we’d hoped but we knew we’d be much faster going down. We were all a bit relieved to have made it to the top, knowing we wouldn’t have to return.
The descent wasn’t quite as bad as I’d feared it might be. Much of the scree skied pretty nicely, cutting down on the joint pounding. We stopped periodically to empty our shoes but it was otherwise pretty uneventful. Two of the guys took a line down the final scree slope further to the skier’s left and it bought them at least ten extra minutes for a lake swim. Recommended.
The final trudge down about 4,000 feet in less than 2 miles was the worst part of the day. It was impossible to get all of the gravel out of our shoes and our feet had already borne the brunt of things for 10+ hours. We hobbled down, no longer experiencing a serene forest bath and instead dulling the pain with the whiskey we’d brought. I tripped at one point and made close friends with some Devil’s Club. It was a descent to forget.
Our bikes were a very welcome sight by the time we made it to them and the ride out was much easier and faster in the daylight with the benefit of potential energy. We reached the car around 12 hours 45 minutes after we’d begun. All in all, pretty decent for about 19 miles and around 8,800 feet of vertical on the day. We called ahead for four large pizzas in Kingston and stuffed our faces on the ride home to Seattle.
All in all, I’m glad we did it and there were some nice moments up there but boy is that mountain a choss pile. I’m very happy to report that I have zero intention of returning.