Ellingwood Point

Route: North Ridge via South Zapata Creek
Posted On: 9/6/2018, By: sailingstar22
Info: Trail is in great shape. Light traffic up to South Zapata Lake for the holiday weekend. We took the C2 route (no snow yet). The scree was quite loose in places, but overall not as bad as we had planned. Stayed to the right on the ascent (left on descent) for more stable handholds. There was someone up there that had no business being on the route and let a massive 1,000lb+ boulder lose at the top of C2, which cascaded all the way down and finally exploded into several pieces. Luckily, the few folks on the trail stayed to the sides on the couloir but even wearing a helmet a boulder like that at the speed would have killed someone instantly. The route describes C2 and C3 options, but is light on the description of the remainder of the ascent. Chose your own adventure on the talus but stay somewhat near the ridge. The last 400m has some definite class 3 climbing. We were nervous about being too close to the ridge, which made it harder. On the descent, staying on top of the ridge was much more pleasant and required little technical work. Great hike - highly recommend this route over the Lake Como approach. Traverse to Blanca will take at least 2-3 more hours R/T. Our single peak took close to 9 hours (5 up with a stop for "brunch" at the lake, 4 down no stops). 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 8/26/2018, By: cdgibbons
Info: I found the standard route very straightforward. I turned left at the cairn in the first photo, 13,320' according to my GPS. I followed a natural ledge in the second photo (with some red rock and grass further over) into the South Face. There are ample cairns both along the lower route and a higher route that gains the ridge sooner (and provides a traverse route to Blanca). 

Route: North Ridge via South Zapata Creek
Posted On: 6/25/2018, By: E_A_Marcus_949
Info: The trail up to Zapata lake was clear and snow free. C3 is snow free (well, one area that's easily avoided). C3 sucks. I made it partway up then turned around because going down is about 10x worse than going up. I wouldn't want to go down that after the ridge. C2 looked to still have a lot of snow in it. Good luck! 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 6/23/2018, By: rgarriott
Info: Most cars parked at the bottom of Lake Como 'road.' A few Jeeps & Toyotas with good clearance made it about halfway up the road. Plan for a long hike to the lake.

The South Face route for Ellingwood follows the same trail as Blanca until 13,400 ft. Once you branch off for Ellingwood, the trail is initially hard to find. I would suggest bringing a couple of pictures from the dot com showing this part of the route.

Thank you to Lacey & Pete for your help with finding the trail. Let me know if you guys want to bag another one. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 6/23/2018, By: Scotty21
Info: Summer conditions from 8,000 feet TH to Summit including Lake Como Road. Very little snow off trail. Plenty of Columbines blooming. 

Route: North Ridge via South Zapata Creek
Posted On: 6/11/2018, By: Mountainqueen
Info: Climbed Ellingwood Point from Zapata. Took the C2 route up with just microspikes. Witnessed a man fall descending. Scary. Do not attempt C2 without ice axe and crampons. We took the C3 route down. Long day. Beautiful weather. Be careful. 

Route: North Ridge via South Zapata Creek
Posted On: 6/11/2018, By: Terminally_Chill
Info: Nothing new to report that wasn't stated in the former post. Ascended via C3, used axes to descend via C2. Saw a large group descending C2 without any ice equipment, witnessed a girl nearly get killed by a loose boulder kicked down from a group near the top of the couloir. BE CAREFUL DO NOT ATTEMPT C2 WITHOUT PROPER EQUIPMENT INCLUDING HELMETS! 

Route: North Ridge via South Zapata Creek
Posted On: 5/30/2018, By: Gdurheim
Info: Zapata lake trail is dry and in great condition. C2 still has snow in the top half and it was solid in the morning, except the last 50' as mentioned in other reports. It was easy enough to climb the rocks to the side of it. Super soft coming back down. Ridge line has a little snow but all avoidable. 

Route: North Ridge via South Zapata Creek
Posted On: 5/31/2018, By: rsingleton
Info: Packed snow in both C2 and C3 couloirs, so using crampons and snow ax is still necessary. Summer conditions on the rest of the trail to the summit! 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 5/28/2018, By: CoHi591
Info: Climbed Lindsey on Saturday morning, drove over to Lake Como Road and backpacked up from pretty much the bottom Saturday afternoon, summit Ellingwood on Sunday.

Everything is in summer conditions. Pack out your used toilet paper! 

Route: North Ridge via South Zapata Creek
Posted On: 5/22/2018, By: Yalegirl09
Info: Posted by Jeff Owsley on the Alamosa Valley SAR page.

Bottom line on S Zapata Lake Trail work: posted 4 miles one way, really 6.5 by initial indications - GPS experts at USFS to determine final distance based on data from two GPS units carried with us. Creek crossing confusion solved - people should not get lost at this point. Most dangerous very steep and extremely slick spot blocked and made into a switchback. Other confusing spots dealt with, but another day of volunteer work to be determined would help. Thanks to Eva S Escobar Mejia and Eagle Scout son Andre Mejia for working 15 min shy of 12 hours, Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado's Sally Wier and USFS's Mike Blakeman and RIo Grande National Forest for GPS units and trail maintenance equipment, and everyone who wanted to be with us and were with us in spirit. All of this was done in Selene Jara's memory, in hopes that future users of this trail will be safe. Might others adopt other trails in the San Luis Valley and Colorado to make them more user friendly and safe also. 

Route: South Face
Posted On: 5/12/2018, By: Yalegirl09
Info: The road to Lake Como is dry, and has recently had some car parts for snacks. It's not any less brutal. From Lake Como to Crater Lake there were occasional snow patches to cross, but snow shoes are absolutely not needed. We brought microspikes but never used them. You may want them depending on your comfort level. The South face is 90% dry with occasional snow and ice patches, which can be mostly avoided. 

Route: North Ridge via South Zapata Creek
Posted On: 5/9/2018, By: desertdog
Info: Other than some more pics, not a bunch more to add to didjapelli's report from the weekend.

We started at the TH at 3am and were at the base of C2 around 6am. I wished we had started a bit earlier to give us more time. I've been in this area before and always kick myself for not camping because it is so beautiful.

As didjapelli said, there was little bit of everything for snow conditions in C2. We were moving good till the last 50 feet when we hit the deep stuff and sunk up to our waists. This really surprised us! The upper part of C2 has plenty of snow and should last for a while.

This is a great area. I may may go back and re-climb Blanca from this side, but camp in the basin. 

Route: North Ridge via South Zapata Creek
Posted On: 5/7/2018, By: didjapelli
Info: Absolutely no snow for quite awhile, and the last mile or two before treeline its not deep and packed so you can use traction or not, I was fine without it. I brought snowshoes but ended up caching them when it became clear they are absolutely not needed. The C2 Couloir has lots of new snow from the snowstorm three weeks ago but it is not consolidated, it still needs a few weeks. There are stretches of it where its excellent, and my crampons were enjoying it very much. Then there are stretches where your postholing up to your waist, and the trouble is you can't tell which places are good or bad. Eventually we started hugging the left side, closer to the rocks where its more consolidated, and we couldn't even go up the last 50 feet of the couloir because it was so deep and soft. At no point did I ever feel unsafe. At this point its doable if you don't mind some posthole frustration. The last 50 feet we skirted to the left and topped out about 40 feet to the left of the couloir. From here, you are never going to touch snow again until you are sitting on the peak. Cached my helmet, ice axe, crampons here. Weather was really perfect, almost no wind all day, towards end of day as we turned from the summit it began gusting pretty frequently but never more than 10 miles an hour. Couldn't have asked for more 

Route: North Ridge via South Zapata Creek
Posted On: 4/26/2018, By: Dave Mason
Info: 3"-4" of snow on the shady side of the valley for the last mile below timberline. Trail was accessible all the way to the base of the C2 couloir. No flotation needed. The couloir had a couple inches of fresh on top of consolidated. Crampons and axe needed for the couloir. No traction needed from the top of the couloir to summit, mix of talus and snow covered talus.