Blanca Peak

Route: Little Bear + Blanca Traverse
Posted On: 9/29/2025, By: Buckie06
Info: All routes are dry 

Route: Northwest Ridge
Posted On: 9/27/2025, By: R7777777
Info: Summer condition. Very rocky above 13k. It’s a long day, the last 1000 ft took me very long. 

Route: Blanca and Ellingwood
Posted On: 9/20/2025, By: AndrewJCraigie
Info: Ellingwood / Blanca traverse - dry 

Route: Lake Como Approach
Posted On: 7/25/2025, By: manitoudavid
Info: I camped beside Lake Como road the night before. It hailed not horribly on my vehicle for about an hour after 2pm. At sundown there were a lot of knats descending upon me and some biting flys. I had a hard time getting a fire going because it was so windy. Started my hike at 520am this morning along Lake Como road. Having gone up it and now back down I can verify the warnings everyone else has left before. There was plenty of dispersed camping along the road especially in the first two miles so I had plenty of space to myself. A subaru parked a little higher than me (around the 1 mile mark) appeared to have torn the rear bumper off from the rocks in the road. After 5 miles of non-stop uphill rocks upon rocks trying to sprain my ankles I called it a day and realized these 14ers would be best done as multiple day backpacking/camping at Lake Como. Coming down I passed maybe ten others coming up planning to backpack at the lake. I had 3 near falls coming downhill due to the steepness/unbalanced rocks. I also failed to make it across the creek on the rocks and got both shoes/socks wet in both directions.

Also when I got back down to the 8800 parking area there was a smell of smoke that I quickly traced to a firepit at one of the pull offs right there. It was smoking and very hot still at 130pm after someone had left it abandoned. Midday in direct sunlight with a lot of wind was a receipe for disaster. I used all the water in my resevoir to smother it out and waited for everything to cool before continuing down. This is my first trip report post and I was motivated by this encounter to promote fire safety in our state. Please be sure your campfires are completely extinguished before leaving them.
10 miles round trip with ~3,400 feet elevation gain in under 9 hours total. 

Route: Lake Como Approach
Posted On: 7/14/2025, By: Bonesaw
Info: Summer conditions unless you hike after a massive hailstorm. The hail is probably gone by now but it was surreal seeing the mountain covered in it 

Route: Lake Como Approach
Posted On: 7/6/2025, By: Ariella6
Info: Dry and summer conditions!

Dispersed camping options all the way up to 8800 feet elevation gain. We made it in ford expedition with 8.7 inches clearance. road is definitely ROUGH even early on. Only gets worse from there.

We backpacked the road up to lake como. Stayed the night and hiked the rest on 7/6/2025

Even on a holiday weekend there were not a lot of folks out. Saw handful of off road vehicles. and 10 hikers on 7/6/2025 (other than our group of 3). Was a quiet and beautiful weekend.

Lots of flowers popping right now. The lakes are stunning.

We went the route up to the ridge that was closer to blanca, which seemed to be different than what is on the 14ers.com route for standard for traverse route. We also opted to come down this as well after completing the traverse. 

Route: Lake Como Approach
Posted On: 7/6/2025, By: MaryinColorado
Info: Summer conditions all the way! The headwall above Crater Lake is still experiencing some run-off, though, so be mindful of some slick, wet rocks. Easy to avoid.

We started with Blanca and did the C3 traverse between the two peaks, and that was super fun if you like class 3. But if you start with Blanca, I would recommend coming back across the traverse again from Ellingwood and descending from the saddle. The standard route descent from Ellingwood was tedious as heck because of how loose the rocks are w/ no consistent, distinguishable trail.

FYI - I posted a separate *trailhead* update just for Como Road up to 10,100 if you're looking for insight on the road, specifically. 

Route: Blanca and Ellingwood
Posted On: 6/30/2025, By: 5meodimte
Info: Complete summer conditions. Blanca to Ellingwood Traverse and Little Bear to Blanca Traverse also completely dry. 

Route: Lake Como Approach
Posted On: 6/21/2025, By: seoulman
Info: Basically summer conditions. A few minor snow crossings that are no real obstacle. Neighboring peaks look to be in similar shape. 

Route: Blanca and Ellingwood
Posted On: 6/15/2025, By: bryan-whitesel
Info: Outside of a few snow crossings the standard route up Blanca is nearing summer conditions. Found that spikes made the handful of snow crossing more secure in the early morning.

All snow avoidable on direct route to Ellingwood.

Harder to say on trail conditions on descent of the standard Ellingwood route as a couple of glissades were taken. Likely similar story to Blanca route. 

Route: N/a
Posted On: 6/7/2025, By: hanada
Info: Didn’t go up Blanca. I did california yesterday, so just sharing some pictures from that side of the Blanca group yesterday and taken from driving 160 today. The area is very dry for early June. Lindsey also looked mostly dry. I didn’t get any pictures of the crestone/KC area bc it was in the clouds when I was on the summit of Cali, but I would expect similar conditions. 

Route: Lake Como Approach
Posted On: 2/23/2025, By: wintersage
Info: There is a solid bootpack/trench all the way up to the camp sites by Lake Como. We parked at 8800’ but it’s certainly doable to get to 9300’ or a bit more before the snow gets too deep. From the Lake, there’s a trench to Holbrook Creek where it looks like another party went up LB’s west ridge or to the hourglass. We kept our snowshoes on until past Crater Lake and switched to microspikes but the snow was still quite slippery by midday so we tried to avoid treadmill-ing on the snow by sticking to the rock ribs. Microspikes were a good choice on the ridge to the summit of Blanca due to the rock hopping. Our plan was also to grab Ellingwood but figured it would be possibly better with crampons and a bit more time. Overall a good warm day with minimal wind, a rarity for this season. 

Route: Lake Como Approach
Posted On: 1/17/2025, By: jacolc
Info: Jan 15: For E/B used flotation to 13330' (0-18in snow deep, average 4-6 where switch to crampons) and generally fallow bottom of drainage. Especially above Blue Lake do not fallow summer road/trail. Very windy. On my way down most of my trench was filled with snow.
Jan 16: To LBear used flotation only below initial couloir, but deposit it above on the ridge. However after additional snow maybe useful on last part of traverse to bottom of hourglass. Traverse in little unconsolidated soft snow was slow moving with or without crampons. Maybe micro spikes will be better option. Hourglass was in great climbing condition. Very little avoidable ice, hard snow required technical crampons (long section of front pointing in excellent hard snow 50-65 deg)) and two ice tools. However I use one tool and tool/pole hybrid (BD Whippet). For every 10-30 feet I kicked rest steps, mainly for my climbing down. In this condition this is NO Error zone. 

Route: Lake Como Approach
Posted On: 1/6/2025, By: bigfoot1
Info: attempt. moderate boot trench until lake como, didn't need any traction. some moderately icy bits where the rocks poke out of the snow on the road. broke out in snowshoes until 12.5k ft. some parts were easy, other times I sank down to mid thigh. i would not follow my tracks after blue lakes.. ended up meandering around trying to pick a good line. it would probably be easier to take one of the snow gullies directly up. snow seemed pretty stable. gully up to the ridge of little bear is snowed in, but ridge looks dry.

turned around at 1230 because i didn't want to get stuck driving back in the snow. yeah, i should have started earlier and summited but i really hate mornings. 

Route: Northwest Ridge
Posted On: 9/30/2024, By: Flatlander35
Info: While the weather was dry and sunny, the snow/hail from the previous few days was apparent on the trail. Starting at the headwall above Crater Lake at about 13,000 feet, slippery and frosted rocks were common. Small patches of snow were common from the saddle at around 13,800 feet until the summit. Overall summer-like conditions except extra caution should be taken due to slippery, frost-covered rocks.