Upper Section of Ellingwood's North Ridge - Traverse From UN 13656

[SnowAlien]

Well, Shawn and I finally ran the Gash ridge to Blanca to North ridge of Ellingwood to new Lidar 13er on Tuesday, so I wanted to thank everyone here who chimed in. First, the OP - QuietBear for starting this thread, as I was not aware of the difficulties of the North ridge, but also to Justiner who provided the most helpful single piece of beta - the photo of the initial C4 downclimb. Once we got there, I knew immediately what it was just from the photo that Justin posted here. Then, of course, to Steve (Marmot72) and OldTrad for the additional helpful beta.
TR will be incoming!

Having climbed Blanca up Gash ridge and down climbed from Ellingwood Point north, en route to 13656, etc. to California, the former is a stouter climb. I'm definitely not a great climber - more enthusiasm than skill - and while that section heading north from Ellingwood was airy, it was not tricky.

Since Steve is a great scrambler (albeit very modest), I have to be careful with his cheerful assessments so not to get completely sandbagged, but his assessment here is spot on! North Ridge on Ellingwood felt easier to me than Gash, no harder than Class 4.

P.S. for anyone interested, I added a short blurb on the North ridge on MP for future reference:
https://www.mountainproject.com/route/1 ... orth-ridge

[justiner]

Nice. Did you take any photos? This area is one I get asked about a lot in my guide.

[SnowAlien]

Nice. Did you take any photos? This area is one I get asked about a lot in my guide.

Too many. Had to do a full TR to fit all the photos I wanted. Please let me know what you think and thanks again for the beta!

https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/triprepo ... trip=22863