Ellingwood Point

Route: Southwest Ridge
Posted On: 7/24/2023, By: -wren-
Info: Totally dry. Its a bug party on the summit (and Blancas), way too many for me to hang out up there and eat lunch personally. I didnt bring bug spray and have 10 or 15 new mosquito bites so something to consider. Really fun route and highly reccomend. 

Route: Blanca and Ellingwood
Posted On: 7/17/2023, By: ashleyelizabeth0312
Info: We summitted Blanca and Ellingwood on 07/04. Perfectly summer conditions besides two snow fields, no spikes or anything needed. Best sunrise ever once on the ridge. Highly advise the traverse from Blanca to Ellingwood, not sketchy and easy to follow. Going back down and up Ellingwood looked like it would be a slog. I left a brand new green Patagonia jacket that folds into itself on the trail somewhere, if you happen to find it, please let me know! 

Route: North Ridge via South Zapata Creek
Posted On: 7/4/2023, By: paescu
Info: Fun day out with the kids! - 4am start @ Zapata Falls trail head. Turned around at C2. The snow was slushy in the lower parts. Probably doable with proper ice axe skills but the kids just did not have enough experience. We opted instead doing some skills training and hanging at the beautiful lake. 

Route: Southwest Ridge
Posted On: 7/2/2023, By: TheHikingDoctor
Info: The gully up to the ridge is quite loose and even large rocks will go flying down. Entire ridge is dry except for once short section that can be bypassed if needed. I chose not to, and it was supportive even mid-morning. The route is fairly solid but with some loose holds here and there; test everything. Traverse over to Blanca is dry. Couple snowfields left in the upper basin but they are short. Leave all the snow/ice gear at home, even spikes. Low gaiters were nice to have when crossing the snow in the afternoon. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 6/26/2023, By: mattbrill9
Info: The basin and Ellingwood are still holding a decent amount of snow - a number of snow fields that you need to cross. Would recommend microspikes and an ice axe for glissading. Great day in the Sangres! 5:30am start, 3 hrs. to summit from Lake Como and 2.5 hrs. back to Lake Como Backpacked from start of Lake Como road day before: 3.5 hrs up, 2.5 hrs down 

Route: North Ridge via South Zapata Creek
Posted On: 6/25/2023, By: man_of_nature
Info: Climbed up C3, climbed down C2. C3 is partly dry, easy to keep it snow free. Still plenty of snow in C2, able to kick step down about a third of the way, then glissade in bursts the rest. Definitely want crampons if going up. Axe is obviously a necessity. Little bit of snow the last 100 feet of the summit, but easy to avoid with a few careful maneuvers. 

Route: North Ridge via South Zapata Creek
Posted On: 6/18/2023, By: cloudkicker
Info: Aborted at the apron of C2 due to snow conditions. 2-3 inches of new snow fell on this mountain the last few days. The snow had the consistency of graupel, millions of ball bearings/pea sized pellets starting around 11,000 and on up past the lake. This unconsolidated snow has covered the good snowpack in the couloir making it very slippery and dangerous. Just by being in the couloir, we set off small rivers of these pellets sliding down the couloir from higher up. We guessed that C3 was in similar shape and didnt bother going over to check it out. The lake is melting out this weekend and depending on weather maybe things will consolidate and be more safe in the couloir making it a worthwhile effort. Or maybe you have a higher appetite for risk than us in which case go for it. 

Route: Blanca and Ellingwood
Posted On: 6/12/2023, By: andy_schlichting
Info: I did the Little Bear-Blanca-Ellingwood traverses. The approach up to Lake Como is a long, hot slog. Honestly Saturday going up there with a 40lb pack was harder than Sunday doing the traverses. I started up the standard route of Little Bear around 2:15 a.m. and encountered the first real snow as soon as I left the road. The talus is absolutely brutal, steep and loose, but fortunately the first gully is probably 80% snow still and that made it safer and easier with crampons and an ice axe. After exiting the notch, the ridge is snow-free until several hundred feet below the Hourglass, minus one snowfield that required crampons again. The Hourglass is awesome right now--it's a straight couloir climb full of good, hard, packed snow, but it's melting quick. I bet it's got maybe another week or two before the snow breaks up in there. Above the Hourglass, it's almost all talus with a few icy rocks and small snow sections. I wouldn't want to climb below someone up there because there's so much loose rock. After summiting Little Bear at about 6:45 a.m., I started the traverse over to Blanca. It's in really good shape right now--no snow on the ridge (although it's so narrow I don't see how snow could ever accumulate there!). Most of the gullies that you have to cross between the little peaks on the ridge have some snow. Most of them I was able to cross without crampons, but a couple of them were too steep and long to risk it. I was surprised at how straightforward that route is--there aren't many options and most of the time you really just go up over the ridge crest. And it sure is exposed! The last bit up Blanca was pretty easy and didn't even require crampons in the snow up there. I summited Blanca at about 9:30 a.m. The descent towards Ellingwood was really easy and quick with crampons and an ice axe. The snow on that side hadn't seen much sun yet since it's more west/northwest facing. But as soon as I started ascending Ellingwood, that had all been baking all morning and it was a posthole fest basically the entire way up. I finally gave up on trying to snow-climb it and headed up to the ridge and rock hopped. I'd recommend that unless you're doing it first thing in the morning right now. I topped out on Ellingwood a little before 11 a.m. and then descended shortly after due to the forecast (although no storms ever came). The descent down Ellingwood was as brutal as the ascent was. Mashed potatoes snow and postholing to my waist at times, I finally decided the only way I was going to make it without breaking a leg was to glissade, even though I didn't have snow pants, and that was successful, but wet and cold. The standard trail up Blanca and Ellingwood that I took back to Lake Como was intermittent snow fields, but for the most part, it was packed enough that the postholing wasn't bad. The Crater Lake is still 95% ice, but looks like it's about to melt, and the lower lakes are ice-free. I was back to camp around 1 p.m. making for almost an 11-hour round trip. The weather could not have been better. It was warm even in the dark on the way up and hot once I was in the sun after Little Bear. I switched to shorts midway through the LB-Blanca traverse and didn't put my light trekking pants back on until the descent of Ellingwood. Camping by the lake was great and I did not encounter another person all weekend until I got back camp Sunday afternoon. Going down the road, which is the spiciest road I think I've ever seen, I encountered two Rubicons and an ATV very close to the lake. Hats off to those folks. I parked my Crosstrek at about 8,150 feet, and shortly after starting up on Saturday, saw a 4Runner bottom out only about 100 feet higher than where I parked. That road is something else. 

Route: North Ridge via South Zapata Creek
Posted On: 6/11/2023, By: CraigE
Info: We climbed Ellingwood Point from Zapata Falls Trailhead yesterday. The trail up to South Zapata Lake was clear and dry, and there was little snow left in the basin around the lake. The C2 Couloir was filled with snow and required crampons and ice axe to ascend and descend. Above that, the ridge to the peak had some snow that was mostly avoidable. But the final few hundred yards to the top were sketchy and required extreme care, especially coming down. The ridge is narrow and exposed, the rock is loose, and the little bit of snow and ice made it harder. We didn't go on to Blanca. The the basin above Lake Como and the ridge to Blanca were still covered in snow. Shout out to the 4 people we saw over on Blanca's summit around 10:30 am -- I'm impressed! 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 5/30/2023, By: kohnenab
Info: Lake como road is dry all the way to the lake. Snow starts on the North side of the lake and is patchy but still >80% covered through the lower basin. Snow did freeze overnight so was supportive on the approach but requires a very early start (before 5am) from Lake Como to have any chance of not sinking through on the return. Snow is softening up by 10am and significant melt throughout the early afternoon. I would bet most is gone in 2-3 weeks. We had a lot of thigh to wait-deep post-holing through the middle and lower basins. Still had some good glissading slopes in the upper basin. Staying on trail is difficult in current conditions which led to many straight vertical snow climbs. Ice axe and spikes necessary. Snowshoes would have been useful in the descent, but not worth carrying the extra weight on the way up. We did not see anyone attempt both Ellingwood Point and Blanca in the same day. A couple of guys started up Blanca after Ellingwood, but we didn't see whether they made it. The snow was incredibly unsupportive by that time and Blanca's whole northwest ridge trail is completely covered with a few feet still. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 2/1/2023, By: highheeledhiker
Info: Basically the same as Blanca condition report. We wore snowshoes past Crater Lake and up to the base of the climb for the Ellingwood/ Blanca saddle. Then we switched into crampons and used our ice axes for both Blanca and Ellingwood. Ellingwood involved more tedious routefinding than Blanca to avoid avy danger and skirt around more technical climbing. Due to limited visibility, we gained the ridge too soon at first then had to downclimb some to get around the notch in the ridgeline. From there it was more smooth sailing to the top 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 1/15/2023, By: goingup
Info: What a beautiful winter summit. With avalanche danger pretty high and mostly sketch everywhere else in the state the Sangres seemed like the safest bet. Mike and I decided on Ellingwood Point. Mike had done Blanca a few weeks earlier around Christmas time and said it was dry. That is no longer the case, but it is dry in comparison to the San Juans where I live or the Elks which are buried under 30,000 feet of snow. I drove from Montrose on Friday afternoon and slept in my truck at the base of the road. Mike met me from Colorado Springs early Saturday morning. Like true masochists we started on the road at 8,000 feet. It was dry until 9,200 feet. We put snowshoes on at Lake Como and kept them on (navigating a few headwalls) until we were standing directly below the summits of Blanca & Ellingwood. They are necessary. We did not attempt the standard route to the saddle but chose a steep line up the south face of EP. We kept snowshoes on until it got too steep. We did not know if we would need them again, so we attached them to our packs and carried them, along with the other 30 pounds of gear we each had in our packs to the summit. The route was a mixed bag of shit. Really crappy snow. We wore microspikes and jumped between snow and rock. The snow was not consolidated enough for crampons. If it was, life would have been cruisy / : It was tough and pretty exhausting forward progress. We started at 3:45 a.m. so we had plenty of time (made the summit at 11:30 a.m.). Our hard turnaround time was 1 p.m. so we did not continue on to Blanca which was only a loose plan if conditions were right. I haven't done a winter 14er since this time last year (La Plata) with an attempt of Harvard a few weeks later (made it really far but turned out I had Covid and did not know it, so I was moving far too slow.) I forgot how much fun carrying a heavy pack through less-than-ideal conditions for 14 hours is. Really though, this was an absolute blast, and I would have no problem going back to do Blanca and Little Bear. Even though I have completed the 14ers in summer I have never actually been up Como Lake Road. In summer, I did Blanca and Ellingwood from Zapata Falls and Little Bear's SW ridge. I am not a fan of people, and those route choices are void of human life. So, this was my first-time up Como Lake road and it was void of people. That is a win. Final stats were 16 miles with 7400 feet of vert. It took us 13 hours and 15 minutes. I made some coffee and drove back to Montrose as soon as we were done. Colorado 114 is a wild drive at night. That is 62 miles of dark and desolate. I call this the 30-hour adventure plan. Winter 14er #18, hoping to get to 20 this season. Winter is the superior season. I will not be told otherwise. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 9/29/2022, By: greenonion
Info: Ellingwood Point trail today completely dry to summit, aside from benign creek crossing lower. My god that rroad. Shout out to the gentlemen I met on route along lower ledges… peace be with you and yours. Beautiful what you're doing. Stay safe 

Route: Blanca and Ellingwood
Posted On: 9/6/2022, By: zootloopz
Info: 14er finisher. Thanks to everyone on this site for their valuable contributions. should've taken the ridge down. the face route is not fun. 

Route: North Ridge via South Zapata Creek
Posted On: 8/1/2022, By: CBMassive
Info: Recent rain storms have greatly increased water flows in the area. Reached the creek crossing at about 1.4 miles up the trail and was faced with wading in fast moving water about thigh high, or turning around. The logs shown in the pictures that accompany the route write-up are no longer present, maybe washed away. We walked up and down the creek looking for an alternative for about 30 minutes, but couldn't find anything that didn't look risky. Decided to abort the hike and try from the Lake Como approach later in the week. If you're going to tackle this route, be prepared for high water at this crossing until the afternoon rains subside.