Blanca & Ellingwood: Soggy Boots and Sour Patch Kids

Ah, good 'ole Lake Como Road... Like that quirky uncle you're always trying to avoid, but he's just part of the deal. Uncomfortable and unavoidable.

We were able to make it to the switchback at 10K' without issue (in a 2.5" leveled F-150 on 33s). I remembered the road being much rougher when I did Little Bear last year... Either I was better prepared for it this time around, or the road has gotten mellower with all the traffic in the last year. Curious to hear if anyone has made similar observations. I saw a surprising number of stock SUVs near the 10K' switchback, which hasn't been the case previously. There was even lightly modified Land Cruiser parked all the way up right below Jaws 1. At this rate, you'll be able to take your Prius all the way up to the Lake in no time!

We left the truck around 4:45 pm and were quickly immersed in the classic Lake Como Road experience, breathing exhaust and dust as we swam upstream against an endless chain of UTVs and Jeeps who were being chased down from the lake by a massive storm that was quickly building. I'm usually pretty good at reading storms near my home in the Front Range, but this system was proving to be a bit more complex and confusing. I thought it looked to be passing from north to south, but it was actually just swirling over hour heads and building vertically over the Blanca Basin. Quickly enough, we were soaked to the bone and spent the next 2 hours hiking in a torrential downpour that was uncharacteristically persistent for Colorado. We arrived at camp above Lake Como at 7 pm, completely saturated.

We called it an early night and tried our best to stay warm and dry as it kept raining throughout the night.

Throughout the night, there was an almost constant rumble of Little Bear shedding rocks off its NW face. About every hour, we awoke to the horrific sound of dishwasher sized rocks calving off the face and shattering on the talus below. Rockfall is certainly not out of character for Little Bear, but the amount of rain it received that night took it to a whole new level. Big rockfall is a terrifying sound to begin with, but it's magnified ten-fold when it's during the middle of the night and seems like it's right over your head.

After the rotting mountain woke us up for the second or third time, Taylor turned to me and said, "I'm so glad you have that one over with." Although I have fond memories of my climb on Little Bear, in that moment I couldn't help but agree.

Morning came too quickly, and by 4:30 we were back in our wet shoes and out in the rain again -- although this time only in a drizzle.

The timing was perfect to enjoy an epic sunrise. Evidently, the Huerfano side had gotten some snow during the night and Lindsey was covered in a light dusting. It was absolutely stunning and 100% classic Colorado.

No, Mom, there's no lightning in those clouds (yet)... That's just a lovely morning rain.

We made it to the Blanca summit at 7 am and took a few minutes to watch the departing rain fall softly on the adjacent peaks before heading over to Ellingwood.

The traverse over to Ellingwood was relatively straightforward, albeit with a bit more route finding than anticipated. Looking over from Blanca, it appears there are only 2 options:

-Stick to the ridge proper for some spicy exposure and a couple tougher moves
-Drop all the way back down to the valley and meet up with the standard route for Ellingwood

However, as you approach the saddle, the Class 3 combo route that Bill describes becomes more apparent (he describes it from Ellingwood to Blanca, which seems to be a bit more obvious coming from that direction). There is what looks like a little goat path carved into the rock that follows the "sweet spot" between the two options above. It's really tempting (and easy) to go too high. It's not the end of the world if you do, but you will end up contouring the rock ribs, which is a lot of extra up and down. There are social cairns everywhere, and most of them lead to nowhere. Ignore the cairns and follow your spidey senses along the path of least resistance through here. If a move feels too hard, it's probably because you've gone too high. I personally did not feel the difficulty exceeded difficult class 2 while we were on route for the combo (although we did go too high and quickly got into some class 3+ terrain).

There isn't a clear junction where the traverse meets up with the standard route, but the terrain quickly changes from slabby rock to talus, and from there, it's pretty much a choose your own adventure to the summit. Looking back along the way, the view of Blanca is quite impressive. We spotted a hiker on the ridge and it really put into perspective how big that face is!

By this time, the morning rain had burned off so we spent almost an hour on the summit! We had it all to ourselves that whole time, which is an incredibly rare occurrence on a 14er anymore. We took our time and soaked it in.

On the descent, meeting up with the standard route proved to be a little tricky. We dropped straight down off the summit, but then had to contour across some incredibly loose talus (you know, the tippy kind that's about the size of your foot). I've included a screenshot of our GPS below. You can see how we descended, and I would not recommending going about it the way we did. Instead, I'd suggest simply retracing your steps all the way back across to the saddle.

We joked on the way out that Lake Como Road seems to exist in some time-warp or space vacuum... There is no concept of time, only the constant rhythmic pounding on the knees that seems to last forever.

We had the opportunity to witness some Jeeps clear Jaws 2, which I've always wanted to see in person. Even for us as relatively competent off-road drivers, it was a pretty wild spectacle for us to behold.

Before we knew it, we were out of the time-warp and back at the truck, on our way to enjoy some celebratory Margs at Calvillo's.

Garmin Stats (from truck at 10K'):
Distance: 13.12 miles
Elevation gain: 4,724'
Moving time: 9 hr 15 min
Calories: 5,399

Time from truck to camp: 2 hr 18 min
Time from camp to Blanca Summit: ~2 - 2.5 hr?
Time from Blanca Summit to Ellingwood Summit (via Traverse): 1 hr 5 min
Time from camp back to truck: Too long