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
|