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The purpose of this trip report is to give information and encouragement to anyone who has been thinking about doing the traverse between Little Bear and Blanca. Right off the bat, I want to say that as a veteran who has climbed all of the "great 14er traverses", and each of the other three in both directions, the LB/B traverse requires significantly less climbing skill than the traverse between either the Crestones or Maroon Bells. More on that later.
I carried a gps and took field notes so the distances described are accurate. Times and distances are provided between key points along the way.
Wednesday afternoon I left Montrose for the 215 mile drive to the San Luis Valley. This is a magical place and if you haven't visited yet, find the time. Approaching from near the Great Sand Dune National park the Blanca group rises majestically from the valley floor:
The Lake Como road is infamous, and for good reason. As previously reported, most vehicles can get about one mile up from the paved road. The view from the start seems innocent enough. The road is visible on the left as it enters the trees. If you get into the trees, congratulations. What comes next is a short dip where the road crosses a dry creek bed. The next 1/4 mile is rough, but if you get past that you can probably get to mile 5.
On this trip I drove 1.6 miles up the road to a nice camp. The plan was to get up early and drive as far as I could and walk with just a day pack to attempt the peaks. This strategy works well for me and I did not envy those folks carrying heavy loads for overnight by the lake with the bears. If it is windy it can be exposed camping down low. But when the conditions are right it can be very pleasant:
I packed up camp and hit the road at around 6:15. The next photo shows the 1.6 miles of the Lake Como Road most cars can travel without damage.
I was able to drive to mile 4.3 before I decided to quit. Funny thing, if you make it this far you can likely go on to about mile 5. It is 7.6 miles from the paved road to the shore of Lake Como. The road crosses the creek at mile 5.3. There is one significant obstacle for vehicles just before the creek crossing. Past that, forget about even attempting to drive it.
I left the truck and started hiking at 7:00 a.m. and arrived at Lake Como after hiking the remaining 3 1/4 miles at 8:30 a.m.
The road continues around the lake and well up into the valley below the Blanca group. There is hikers trail clearly marked by several cairns showing where to leave the road and start up the large rubble filled gully on the flank of LB. It is only 0.4 mile around the lake to this junction.
There are discussions in other trip reports about how best to tackle this bit. I found it very nice to hug as close to the left (east) side of the gully as ascending, staying literally with one foot on the cliff and using the solid rock whenever convenient to avoid loose and unsure footing. This not only made the ascent pleasant but had the advantage of allowing me to stay clear of the rocks being trundled down the slope by the party of three coming down from the peak.
Once at the top of the gully there is a faint hikers trail below the ridge all the way to the base of the hourglass. It seemed there were many possible variants and I found myself several times hunting for a cairn or other hint about the best way to proceed. The first objective is a prominent notch in the ridge after which the way becomes more clear.
The distance from the time you leave the road, at approximately 11,900', to the base of the hourglass, at approximately 13,300', is exactly 1 mile and took me 1 1/2 hours. From there it is another 0.3 to the summit which took another 40 minutes, putting me on the summit of Little Bear at 10:50 a.m. There was only a small trickle of water flowing down the center of the hourglass and some of that was frozen. It looked intimidating but the climbing was straight forward and the water was so minimal that it could be straddled without any concern about stepping on wet or icy rock. The ropes hanging there looked new.
Someone message me about how to rotate this photo!
Now a few thoughts on the traverse. I had read many reports and looked at many photos to prepare for this hike. The initial downclimb to the ridge is often referred to as the "crux" of the climb. I disagree. Generally, the difficulties are the gaps between the various blocks and towers. A couple of these required solid 4th class skills, but these were not in the fantastic exposed areas of the ridge. I think the airiest and one of the harder moves was getting on the ridge between tower 1 and tower 2. Also, some of the most enjoyable part of the hike was getting on top of the second tower. What I don't understand is why this hike gets a 5th class rating when the traverse between Maroon and North Maroon is so much more difficult and is only rated 4th class. Also, anyone who has downclimbed from Crestone Needle to start the traverse to Crestone Peak without roping up has faced far more exposure than anything on the LB/B traverse.
These thoughts are not to downplay the beauty or the overall fantastic experience of hiking this ridge. Just the opposite. I simply think that it needs to be brought down out of the stratosphere just a bit. It is a long hike. The ridge is an exposed place without ready retreat. It would be a bad place to wait out a storm. But at the end of the day the technical skills and tolerance for extended exposure one has to possess to enjoy this hike are not that great. 90% of your day will be on a path wide enough to sit down and have lunch or take a nap.
Back to some visuals.
About half way across there is a cairn made of white rocks. This marks a particularly nice place to take a break as it is wide, level and sheltered from the wind.
This next photo shows what is referred to in other reports as the "three towers". The first of these is typically avoided by traversing below the ridge on the South side. I took this advice and stayed as high as possible until regaining the ridge in the notch between tower one and two. I would like to hear back from anyone who stayed true to the ridge over this tower.
From the summit of Little Bear to the Summit of Blanca was 1.33 miles. I left Little Bear at 11:00 and summited Blanca at 1:01. The Roach guide says it can take anywhere from 2 to 8 hours to complete the traverse. I stopped for lunch, stopped to take photos, stopped to look around. Traveling alone is generally faster than traveling in a group, but this should not take anyone longer than 3 hours.
A couple more images from along the route:
Looking to the east from the summit of Blanca is a nice view of Mt. Lindsey.
At 1:00 in the afternoon I still had some gas in the tank and the day was turning out as forecast; bright, beautiful and not a hint of rain. I decided to extend the day and climb Ellingwood Point. The descent from Blanca to the saddle between it and Ellingwood is straightforward and fun. The ridge crest should be used instead of the crisscrossing dirt trails all over the face below it. Likewise, the ridge up from the saddle has just one small obstacle that can be climbed around without losing too much elevation off the ridge. The distance between Blanca and Ellingwood along the ridge is just over 0.7 mile and took about an hour.
Descending off the SW Ridge of Ellingwood Point rounded out a fantastic tour. I also have to say that for those that enjoy climbing a knife edge ridge the SW Ridge of Ellingwood has lots of opportunities for practicing this skill.
From the summit of Ellingwood Point back to the point on the road where the trail starts up Little Bear was 1.7 miles which made the loop just a shade over 5 miles. This gave me about 7 hours of beautiful hiking above 12,000 with two hours each way from the car. I was back to the truck at 5:30 p.m.
So in summary, if you tackle this trifecta keep in mind that it is a 21 mile round trip starting from the paved road. This is pretty close to the Roach measurement as he puts the trailhead at 1.8 miles from the pavement, where there is a trail register. Also, his route descends Ellingwood via the South Face which I don't understand. Descending the SW Ridge may add a little mileage, but it really made a nice finish to the day. One other comment on the Roach guide. Contrary to the description in route 20.9V in the 2nd edition the ridge between Blanca and Ellingwood can be climbed almost entirely on the true crest of the ridge. It is fun and highly recommended.
After all that, be sure to swing by the sand dunes.
Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
I was just up there the other day and I have to agree with you on the technical climbing aspect. Class 4 at best on the gaps around the towers. Downclimb was cake (though I did the NW face so I already climbed up that before downclimbing). I will disagree on the exposure part though and speed. I would consider myself fairly competent with route finding, comfortable with exposure, and pretty fast on that terrain and it still took me 2–2.5 hours. There were some very airy spots, in fact most of the ridge was pretty exposed. Definitely not a place for someone who isn’t comfortable with a ton of exposure (different exposure than the others since it is the Capitol ridge type exposure, not the climbing up a class 4–5 face exposure, but airy none the less). Also need to be fairly speedy unless it is a complete bluebird day, figuring it takes at least 2–3 hours to traverse, plus 1.5 hours back down from Blanca to a safe zone if you do get caught. The length of time you need to be on your game is what separates this traverse from the others IMO.
Either way, good work on the traverse! Looks like you had a nice day out there!
You did what I plan on for my finishing climb next summer. Blanca was my first 14er. Going back there to do LB, followed by the traverse to Blanca, and ending on Ellingwood just sounds like the right way to finish to me. Thanks for the write up. Hope to follow in your footsteps.
did you free climb up the hourglass or use ropes and harness? Other than the rope that is already there. Love the detailed route description and pictures, by the way.
The hourglass is the antithesis of loose. It is solid rock. Firm as _______, well, fill in the blank. Free Climbable? Well duhh. Yeah. I didn’t touch those evil tendrils of the anti–LNT crowd. AND! if you can scramble up to the summit of little bear without touching the ropes then that IS the test. You may now proceed without fear or trepidation about the route ahead. Blanca is yours for the taking.
So many times I read these reports and they seem written more to entertain than to inform (the scarier the better). I understand that there should always be a healthy dose of caution when doing these, but so many times I'm scared $*itless and then I get up on a more difficult 14er and just don't want it to end. I suppose a person's personal comfort level has a lot to do with it too. Anyway, thank you for your honest assessment of what looks like an awesome route. I'm hoping to follow the same path this weekend.
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