Blanca Peak

Route: Northwest Ridge
Posted On: 9/29/2024, By: dweiss
Info: Ascent was nice and safe. Hailed multiple times throughout the day, but not enough to make people stop. There were plenty of caves to hide in on the final ascent up if hail were to become a problem. Hail/Snow buildup made finding the Ellingwood/Blanca split-off point and the trail afterwards to the ridge difficult, but not impossible. Even if you get off the trail at that part, it is easy and safe to climb straight up to the ridge. 

Route: Lake Como Approach
Posted On: 9/26/2024, By: Ohio14ers
Info: Route is fairly clear up until the ridge scramble in which snow and ice are still around. Of note is right before the summit there is a difficult move where it is completely snow covered. I have 42 14ers done and felt it was just a bit too dangerous. Another fellow also turned around although a young couple made it. With benign weather conditions it could be melted out in a couple days. Just be aware it exists. One wrong slip and you would be in a world of hurt. 

Route: Lake Como Approach
Posted On: 9/20/2024, By: Androzs
Info: There is some hard crusty snow near the top that obscures and also makes the route more dangerous. 

Route: Blanca and Ellingwood
Posted On: 9/3/2024, By: chelsluckb2
Info: Hiked on 9/2. I decided to go the Zapata Falls route to knock off a bit of distance and avoid the labor day Lake Como crowds.

The approach hike is gorgeous. I have seen a lot of high alpine lakes, and I thought South Zapata Lake was stunning. I went up C2. The hike up wasn't bad. As others have said, I would stick to the right mostly as there are decent holds and more solid rock.

I was a little demoralized when I got to the top of C2 and saw the length of the talus section to the summit, but knocked it out without too much trouble. Lots of fun class 3 climbing near the summit!

I traversed over to Blanca and tried to stay high on the traverse as much as possible. The rock is pretty loose at times but overall nothing too bad and the traverse is fairly short. With having to re-summit Ellingwood to get back to the TH, the elevation gain on this is no joke - I came in just over 6500 ft in 15 miles.

The downclimb of the talus field and C2 was the lowlight of the day. Pretty much everything moves on the talus field, including huge boulders, so I went slowly. C2 is very loose and a slog of a downclimb, but I stuck to the more solid rock as much as possible.

Overall, it was an awesome hike and I recommend this approach if you want fewer crowds on these peaks! 

Route: Lake Como Approach
Posted On: 8/13/2024, By: Novicewhofailsmore
Info: This 14er was my most rewarding of all 11 I have done this year. I have stared at this peak for over 35 years growing up in the SLV. I failed to summit last year. Today it was way more wet than last year. Freshwater streams to hydrate all the way to the bottom of the peak. So I packed less weight this year than last year. Started 3.5 miles from Lake Como. Left at 12:30 am and sumitted at 10:30. Some people turned around on the ascension as storm clouds intensified all around the 3 14ers at about 9am. 500 ft from the summit and I prayed as I did not want to fail like last years attempt. I pushed on till I summited. The rains never came. At about 2pm all had subsided and the rest of the day it was sunny and hot. Reached my vehicle at 6:30 pm. Total hours to peak and back was 18 hours and 12 miles total. From about 2 miles before the Ellingwood/ Blanca saddle the views are incredible. The Little Bear hourglass and much more. 

Route: Blanca and Ellingwood
Posted On: 8/11/2024, By: streetyz
Info: We were going to do Little Bear but swapped to Blanca/Ellingwood due to an intense thunderstorm that came in at 2AM the morning of the climb. While it didn't last long, nearby creeks were full of runoff spilling onto trails and making the rocks on the approach to the ridge very slippery all the way up to ~13200. We were glad to not be in the hourglass. The road had one creek crossing in particular that was tricky to ford and there were several other spots where we had to get our feet wet. We had a '99 Jeep Cherokee which made it to around 10200' before it was too rutted for us to feel comfortable.

As for this route, it's good to go as for now! Really wonderful day and fun class 3 (albeit pretty loose) from Ellingwood to Blanca. The traverse took us ~1 hour 15 minutes. It definitely looks worse than it is (imo.) The ridge itself was completely dry by the time we made it up. 

Route: Blanca and Ellingwood
Posted On: 7/17/2024, By: wahpaha
Info: Summer conditions :) 

Route: Little bear Blanca traverse
Posted On: 7/8/2024, By: BoulderDudes
Info: Route up to Little Bear was completely devoid of snow. Conditions were really good but would not want to follow anyone up the initial gully or the hourglass due to rock fall. The little bear to Blanca traverse was great and also had no snow! 

Route: Lake Como Approach
Posted On: 7/1/2024, By: caesarsalad
Info: Some of the trail is currently a stream, but avoidable or rocks available to use to cross. A few short, non steep snow fields to cross, but otherwise in summer conditions. One of our group used poles on the snow, but the rest of us did them just fine without spikes or poles. 

Route: Northwest Ridge
Posted On: 6/24/2024, By: coffbrauhaus
Info: Due to heavy rain Friday night, absolutely everything was wet, and the trail briefly turned into a stream around 12,100. Still one major snowfield to cross, used spikes and trekking poles. 

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.