Ellingwood Point is in decent shape for the end of winter. Was able to drive my 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee to 9,750 on the road. (Snow blocks the road from there, see conditions report for Lake Como road)
Past 9,750, the road is mostly snow with a decent boot pack trail in place. You could get away without snowshoes until about 10,500, then they become mandatory. Lake Como area is in great shape for winter camping with a solid 2-3 feet of snow on the ground. More than enough for a tent with a nice boot pit. A trench now extends across the lake and follows the standard route up towards Ellingwood Point. We finally ditched our snowshoes near 12,500 and switched to crampons for the final part up Ellingwood's south face. (Don't bother with anything less than crampons) We opted to gain the saddle around 13,700 on the Ellingwood side and climb the ridge proper to the summit.
NOTE: There was just a fresh dump of 3-6 inches of snow up there. That has covered everything pretty nicely, making it harder to see where the bulletproof snow fields are vs trap-door boulder-hoping. It has also jacked the avalanche conditions up as well. During the descent, we saw a small slide off Ellingwood's south ridge. It was all surface powder sliding on bulletproof snow from the night before. Several smaller sluffs up towards Blanca as well. Give that area some time to stabilize before venturing up there again. If you'd like pictures, shoot me a PM and I can send you some.
|
