Blanca Peak

Route: Lake Como Approach
Posted On: 6/15/2024, By: erinmariemeyer
Info: 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: Blanca and Ellingwood
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: 5/28/2024, By: booger
Info: Snow line starts right on the far side of Lake Como, should have brought tennies for the hike on the road which was way longer than expected, lots of babyheads. Good coverage above Lake Como, beautiful mountains, skied Blanca and Ellingwood. 

Route: West Face
Posted On: 5/20/2024, By: slawrence2011
Info: See my Ellingwood report, skied down Ellingwood and reached the transition point around 13K around 9. Snow was much firmer on the Blanca side so switched to crampons and axe immediately. First couple hundred feet I was able to find a zone where I could side traverse in crampons without sinking at all, so I milked that as much as possible. Then became impossible and started sinking ankle to knee deep again (but not due to melt, just firm crust and weak snow underneath). Continuous snow all the way up to Blanca/LB ridge at a point just W of the summit around 14,2. From there, basically followed ridge to the summit, which was mostly solid low angle snow. A few of the moves to get to it were a little scary with thin, soft snow, but that's probably just me. From the summit, I was able to ski directly down and make a few chalky turns and then traverse back to the top of my ridge. The top couloir that connected to the main face had a very steep rollover, so I side slipped down a few feet and horizontally snuck over it to minimize exposure, probably takes away the clean descent. Then perfect fall line skiing all the way down to the basin, and all the way back to camp at Lake Como. Amazingly good coverage up there right now. 

Route: Gash Couloir
Posted On: 5/8/2024, By: jmeizis
Info: Firm and consistent snow above 10,500'. Wish we didn't have skis but lots of ice and snow all over. No cornice visible but unfortunately did not get to climb. 

Route: Lake Como Approach
Posted On: 4/10/2024, By: aksean22
Info: Climbed and skied Blanca and Ellingwood on Monday. Lake Como road is dry to 9,800'. From there it's patchy snow to 10,200' then continuous snow the rest of the way to the lake. Big shoutout to KyaCav for driving us all the way to snowline in his truck, it saved us almost 2k of walking from where I parked my Crosstrek and made the rest of the day much more enjoyable. There's still plenty of snow in the upper basin, but the last windstorm really did a number on conditions. Everything is wind swept and crusted. It mostly supported skinning, but I was breaking through up to my knees when we switched to booting. We more or less followed the summer trail all the way to the summit of Blanca. There was one other group that took a more direct route up the North Face and we crossed paths with them on the summit. Skied directly off the top. There's good coverage for the first 100', then had to navigate a thin strip of snow through the rocks for the next 200' before exiting onto the main band of snow back down into the basin. From there we put on crampons and booted up Ellingwood. This peak had better coverage than it's neighbor, but much worse snow conditions. We skied punch-crust the whole way whole way back to Lake Como. Got 'er done but it wasn't pretty. I clocked 12 miles and 5500' car-car from our starting point. The line on Blanca is hanging on by a thread, but Ellingwood will be in for a while still. I would not recommend trying either until we get warmer temps to break down that crust. 

Route: Lake Como Approach
Posted On: 3/30/2024, By: daway8
Info: Did not attempt to summit, just posting some beta for anyone interested. Hiked up to Lake Como on Friday to try out the winter camping gear I got on clearance. Winter may be over but it's still very wintery up there. Parked at 8,800ft. Snow on road started immediately after that, intermittent at first but soon continuous. Previous footprints from someone else only went maybe a few hundred yards up the road. Had to break trail from there on out. By about 9,850ft I was punching through halfway to my knees. The real fun began above the final switchbacks where you enter the trees by the pullout at 10,200ft. Trenching through the trees with a 45lbs pack was brutal. Took almost 6 hours to go from 8,800ft to Lake Como at 11,800ft, compared with just over 2 hours on the way down the next afternoon. Had to cross some loaded slopes on the way to the lake but nothing in the CAIC danger zones (was green for the slopes of concern which were wind and sun blasted). At camp by Lake Como tried taking off snowshoes just for fun and promptly sunk waist deep. Saturday morning went to about 12k on the way to Blanca/Ellingwood to get views of the peaks but didn't want to deal with the wind up high so just grabbed a few photos of this peak group to share with anyone interested. There's now a pretty solid trench in along this route. 

Route: Northwest Ridge
Posted On: 11/12/2023, By: Watermelon Mountains
Info: 1-3 inches of snow from Lake Como to Blanca Peak. Some small patches of ice between Lake Como and Blue Lakes. I used microspikes past 13,000, but they werent the perfect solution. There was just enough snow to make me want more than bare boots, but too little snow in that I ground the spikes against rock more than I would have liked. 

Route: Lake Como Approach
Posted On: 11/12/2023, By: Watermelon Mountains
Info: A light dusting of snow (0-1in) over the final 3ish miles. No traction required. 

Route: Northwest Ridge
Posted On: 10/19/2023, By: 6c2cd6fde4f40811
Info: Conditions are still solid - some patches of ice / snow, but easily avoided. Traction not necessary. Class 3 traverse and Ellingwood Point are completely snow-free. 

Route: Northwest Ridge
Posted On: 10/15/2023, By: buddapilot
Info: Summer conditions with minor snow near the top but easily avoidable. No traction needed. 

Route: Northwest Ridge
Posted On: 10/9/2023, By: Abowser7
Info: Summer conditions on Ellingwood, very minimal snow on Blanca. Snow free all the way until the Blanca ridge and most of it is avoidable. Beautiful conditions on the lake Como peaks, but this is sure to change soon. Get it while you can. 

Route: Northwest Ridge
Posted On: 9/30/2023, By: taylorharris50
Info: Spikes would be helpful for the final pitch. Otherwise summer conditions. 

Route: Blanca and Ellingwood
Posted On: 9/20/2023, By: clando
Info: Conditions for the good ole lake como peaks 09/19/23 Little bear: -5/10 Blanca: 6/10 Ellingwood point: 8/10 Hourglass is covered in ice and til it melts, its a death trap. Little bear side of the traverse is pretty sketchy with the melting snow. Blanca half is fine. South faces are dry, north faces are highly variable. Hopefully it melts out, but Im not holding my breath. Blanca has a some snow on the ridge but there isnt much sloping rock, so its not an issue. Ellingwood had maybe one patch of snow.