Ellingwood Point

Route: Southwest Ridge
Posted On: 7/14/2024, By: Gibson135
Info: Completely snow-free from the lake to the peak. Had a great morning heading up this route. Bringing my gear up that road to the lake to camp might not have been a blast, but getting up early to tackle the SW ridge was well worth it. I had to trace back a few times to try and keep it class 3 - Im pretty sure I was off route here and there when it seemed harder than that - but it all worked out. 

Route: North Ridge via South Zapata Creek
Posted On: 7/7/2024, By: fischertd
Info: Very little snow left in the C2 couloir. There's just 2 patches of snow, one about 2/3 of the way up and the other very close to the top. You're able to avoid both by skirting to the right on the first one and climbing the rock on the left for the second one. Definitely lots of downed trees on the Zapata approach, starting right after the first creek crossing. Be ready for lots of difficult, loose talus once you start climbing out of the lake. 

Route: North Ridge via South Zapata Creek
Posted On: 7/1/2024, By: wanderingsteve
Info: No recent updates so I did not know what to expect with snow. Be prepared for a lot of deadfall on the trail. I climbed and descended the C2 couloir. Unavoidable shallow snow starts just before 12,600 but you cannot stay on snow all the way to the ridge as there is 50 feet or so of rock you must ascend before continuing to the ridge on more snow or climbing the rocks just to the left of the snow (what I did). You'll definitely want an ice axe and some traction for this section, but you may be better off not carrying all of that for such a short section and taking the C3 gully instead. No snow on the ridge, but it's a long talus slog to the summit from the top of the C2 couloir. The rock is very loose on the descent of the C2. Glissading is not wise given the number of rocks jutting out or hiding just below the surface. 

Route: Lake Como Approach
Posted On: 6/15/2024, By: erinmariemeyer
Info: Also posted to Blanca! I hiked Ellingwood first, reached the snow around 6 am and it was sheets of ice due to rain and snow overnight. Definitely will need traction early in the morning. On the way up the rock were covered in ice. I dropped a little further down to do the traverse. Gullys were ice so it wouldnt hurt to have an ice axe. I would stick to more ridge direct approach with Blanca. Everything was cover in ice on the right side at 1130 but not much on the ridge. On the way down snow was slushy, couldnt glissade really and post holing the whole way back. High water levels and mud everywhere! 

Route: Blanca and Ellingwood
Posted On: 6/14/2024, By: joshchristian280
Info: Summited Blanca and Ellingwood 6/12/2024: Parked car at about 8500 feet, hiked the rest of the Lake Como approach to camp at Lake Como for the night. Man that road is nasty. Summited Ellingwood Point first, then combo traverse to Blanca, then down Blanca. Consistent snowfields start at about 12750 feet. Spikes definitely needed for going up, ice axe was helpful too. The scramble along the ridge to Ellingwood was clear of snow. The combo traverse had 1 small snowfield, will likely be gone within a week, then was clear all the way to Blanca. Started at 4:30, the snow was pretty firm, summited Blanca by ~9:30, and was postholing only to my ankles on the way down. Crater lake is still mostly frozen, but Lake Como completely melted. 

Route: South Couloir
Posted On: 6/4/2024, By: andy_schlichting
Info: Blanca Group update: Summited Little Bear and South Little Bear on Saturday and Ellingwood and Blanca on Sunday with my sister. I can't overstate how much I hate hiking that road up. Anyways, the snow has melted around the lake campsites and the ice has melted off half the lake--I'm sure it'll be completely gone by this weekend. Snow starts basically right at the lake and is mostly continuous to all three summits. I was here the same weekend last year and there is a lot more snow than a year ago. Little Bear: the snow up the north gully to the ridge was really good going up in the dark. Heading down in the early afternoon, it was awful and soft with a lot of postholing and some slipping. Had to self-arrest once. The west ridge was the only dry section the whole weekend. The hourglass has solid snow from the base to the summit, with a short section of mixed climbing at the top of the hourglass. The choke in the hourglass is very icy so you'll need to kick in there. Anyone looking at the LB-Blanca traverse, it looked like it was in good shape. The ridge is mostly dry but you'll need crampons to cross the gullies (as I did last year). Heading over to South LB, I left my crampons on the LB summit because this ridge was mostly dry and no traction was needed. A fun, short, exposed class 3 scramble. Ellingwood: We chose to do Ellingwood first since on Sunday it would get first sun and soften up before Blanca. This was a great decision. Snow was really good in the dark up to the base of the Ellingwood south couloir where it was very inconsistent. A lot of postholing below 13k in the couloir, but it got solid the rest of the way. You can leave your crampons on the false summit at the top of the couloir for the short scramble up to the true summit. Blanca: This was a fun adventure. I didn't pay attention to the route on here and chose to onsight it. Mostly stuck to ridge direct on the traverse from Ellingwood and that was fine until probably the last bit where the saddle cliffs out, which forced us to downclimb some class 4 to get to the true route below the ridge. I'd probably recommend figuring out where to descend from the ridge direct rather than downclimb where we did while it's got snow on it. Once we got on-route to the saddle, we followed snow the remainder of the way up Blanca. The snow was mostly solid the entire way up Blanca since it hadn't gotten sun yet by 9 a.m. The descent started to soften and there were sections, particularly below Ellingwood, where postholing was awful. That said, overall there was less postholing than I expected. Crampons and ice axe are necessary for all three peaks. I'm not sure snowshoes would've helped in the late morning or early afternoon and I definitely don't think they're worth the extra weight up that road. Get on this soon while the snow is solid! There's no safer time to do these peaks to avoid rockfall. 

Route: Lake Como Approach
Posted On: 5/20/2024, By: daway8
Info: Took advantage of the tracks left by slawrence2011 to go after Ellingwood Point. Started just after midnight Sun night/Mon morning due to possible avy concerns. That was probably overkill since the snow remained quite firm, though there has been abundant sluffing of the snow on basically all the steep slopes in the area. I put on snowshoes on the far side of Lake Como due to occasional minor sinking but could have possibly skipped them without too much trouble - though that might not be the case by afternoon. A couple paths diverge on the far side of Lake Como and then more diverging tracks after the turnoff for Little Bear, including some going way off track to Blue Lakes. Followed existing tracks up the couloir adjacent to the standard route for Ellingwood but foolishly tried it in snowshoes, not realizing until too late how steep it eventually becomes, which lead to an awkward side of the mountain transition from snowshoes to crampons - which I highly recommend in the early morning when the snow is very firm. Ellingwood took longer than expected and wasn't sure how recent all the sluffing of the snow was, plus needed to drive back to FTC for work the next day so opted not to try to add on Blanca, which is still quite fully loaded with snow, compared with Little Bear, the visible side of which is melting fast. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 5/20/2024, By: slawrence2011
Info: Left camp around 4 in order to try to ski Ellingwood and Blanca. Wore skins all the way to top of basin at 13,2 (had to take off skis to boot above first lake, which was quite punchy), which helped me move quick through the frozen crust. I booted up the first obvious couloir clear of cliffs, which can be seen in one of the pics here that I took from the basin after skiing Blanca. Quite punchy, didn't even wear crampons, sunk between ankle and knee deep, mainly shin. Top couple hundred feet, snow got firm, and kick stepping took forever since I didn't want to get out crampons or axe at that point (should have earlier). Hit the ridge just climbers R of summit, and traversed over with ice axe to true summit. I saw some lines from the summit and along the ridge that I considered skiing, but I didn't see them connecting and I knew there were cliffs, and after looking at the photo after, glad I didn't. My line (the way I went up), is the first way that appears to go for mortals like me. Skiing around 9 was somewhat bulletproof, but the snow was flat enough it made a very nice ski. Skied down to around 13K, and transitioned to head up Blanca. 

Route: North Ridge via South Zapata Creek
Posted On: 5/5/2024, By: trailboss88
Info: Snow starts covering trail around 10,500'. Several dead trees fallen across trail. Still a lot of snow around the lake and on the north face. The last creek crossing near treeline is the last running water. Thunder-snow Saturday evening brought another inch plus of snow above 11,400' (where I camped). Ridge looked full-on mountaineering mix, and with unstable weather I didn't attempt. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 11/16/2023, By: s_brummer
Info: 11/15/23 Conditions are basically still summer/fall-like it seems! I only hiked to about 10,300 (started at about 7,800) on the Lake Como Road. My intentions were to summit EP, however, I forget how hard it can be to get out of the tent on cold nights. In my experience with the road, if there's going to be snow on the approach it starts around that point... And the road was totally dry, honestly the driest I think I've ever seen the Sangres :( on the drive out, all of the 14ers (and really the entire Sangres) appeared to be totally dry. Go get them while you still can!! :) I'll post pictures of the Crestone group from a distance and Blanca group with this too for anyone curious! Also, the upcoming storm doesn't appear to be too strong by any means (for the Sangres) so conditions should stay Fall-like for a while I would think based on my experience with the CO-Sangres. 

Route: Southwest Ridge
Posted On: 10/22/2023, By: Kbrown321
Info: Did SW ridge and traverse over to Blanca from 8500. Snow did not impact the SW ridge route at all, and was very minimal on both it and Blanca. Almost all surrounding peaks were dry, with only steep north-facing pitches holding snow. Started at 3:30a to knock out the approach in the dark, which made it much easier. SW ridge was a fantastic route, one of my favorite scrambles. Sustained class 3, exposure is nice but not mental shutdown-inducing, and you can stay ridge proper the entire time without needing to worry about cliffing out (previous reports that said never deviate more than 5 feet from the ridge were pretty spot on, made route finding easy). Gained the ridge from the S gully and sloping ramps called out in previous TRs to the west of the Y couloir in the route desc., east and much less loose ascent that added even more scrambling. Traverse to Blanca can be kept class 3 on ridge proper most of the way, with one downclimb required at a notch where ascending out of it would be cl5. Much more solid on the ridge than doing the lower cl3 traverse, and there is heavy exposure to the east if you want it. Walk back down lake como rd was a long slog, but honestly thought it wasnt as bad as many other reports make it out to be (though I can imagine its worse in the heat of summer). Subie made it in and out of the spot at 8500 with no issue Total stats: 14mi, 6250, 12.5 hr 

Route: North Ridge via South Zapata Creek
Posted On: 10/14/2023, By: awestra
Info: On 10/14, route was dry other than C2 couloir, which had intermittent snow. Glad to have ice axe + spikes for that portion. Pics show C2 couloir, summit ridge, and Blanca face 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 9/30/2023, By: taylorharris50
Info: summer conditions. 

Route: North Ridge via South Zapata Creek
Posted On: 8/5/2023, By: Skitch
Info: Great day. Started at 5:40am. Climb up to the lake was beautiful with no bugs. We didnt see a single other person on our way up. C2 couloir was steep but had great holds the whole way up - stick to the boulder fields and to the right where the rock is solid. Slog through talus up to the ridge, then some fun class 3 moves to get to the summit. We traversed over to Blanca - had some trouble route finding on the way over there and dropped too low. Way back was quick and easy. Down climb from ellingwood & C2 was a little sketchy with loose rock. We took it very slow. Clocked in at 10ish hours with 5900 feet of elevation gain. 

Route: Blanca and Ellingwood
Posted On: 7/31/2023, By: MrWaanderful
Info: Complete summer conditions. No snow crossings at this point. Some water on trail along road and at headwalls but nothing to be concerned with. Multiple parties stated difficulties finding route but there are enough cairns present to keep close enough to on route.