Route: West Ridge and Southwest Face Posted On: 2023-05-24, By: Sail3733 Info: I left my tent at 1am in hopes of catching cold and consolidated snow in the first gully. However, that gully's snow was unspportive. The recent non freezing temps, rain, and sun made the large amount of snow in it very granular and "airy". The CAIC reports I had been reading warned of this type of weather making steep narrow gullies dangerous. It talked about starting early and finishing early and that when a boot step sinks below the ankle, call it a day. I was sinking to my thigh at 12,200' and called it a day a 2am. Oddly enough, at 6am the gully had crusted over and probably would have supported a boot step up high. However, by the time I would have gotten back to the gully it certainly would have all lossened up again (more rain, warm temps, and sun forcasted). Maybe I'm mistaken to think without some consistent freezing, the gully will continue to be unsafe until a lot of the snow volume decrees. In other news, I got my stock long bed Tundra to 9,800'. There are at least three parking spots there, if that helps anyone plan. Finally, I found a very nice alpine mitten and hat on Blanca Rd. If they are yours I can mail it to you at no charge. Let me know. |
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Route: West Ridge and Southwest Face Posted On: 2023-05-16, By: gcook33 Info: Great day out there. Parked at 10k and walked 3 miles to camp at the lake (in snow). Ascended the first gully to the ridge and it was decent snow, but postholed several inches deep. Backside over to the hourglass was mix of snow and rock. Once to the apron (at 530am), the snow was stable and conditions were great up thru the hourglass. We had 5 of us so there are lots of good kick steps in there. About 500 feet from summit we opted for some rock climbing, then about 200 feet from summit put on crampons again. Snow held great again. Descended same way, until the bottom of the apron, we skirted over to the dry ridge and rode that until we came to the first gully. Descent of first gully with crampons and snow was softening at 11am, but still good with crampons, just some postholes. Used snowshoes around the lake for .5 miles, then dry rest of way. Weather was perfect overall and this is an ideal way to get this peak. Super fun, but make sure you're skilled with ice axes and crampons and are comfortable on steep terrain and wet/icy rock. |
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Route: SW Ridge Posted On: 2023-05-14, By: Will_E Info: Route is mostly dry until the Momma Bear Traverse, I didn't find the snow on the the traverse to be very consequential. I took crampons and an axe, but used neither. |
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Route: West Ridge and Southwest Face Posted On: 2023-05-09, By: jas0nleslie Info: There is still plenty of snow around the lake, and up to the top of the 1st couloir. Floatation was good down low during the exit. Most of the traverse to the hourglass was dry, but intermittent snow for the last .1 miles to the apron. Ice in the choke of the hourglass, and then intermittent again. Thanks to tjvanfossen for the beta the previous weekend! It helped a ton. |
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Route: West Ridge and Southwest Face Posted On: 2023-05-01, By: tjvanfossen Info: Mostly good conditions with a few exceptions. A few spots in and above the hourglass were very thin, requiring some mixed climbing. The choke point in the hourglass only had 1-2" snow on top of slab and likely won't be there in a day or two and what snow remains was sloughed around by us so isn't very supportive anymore. We found the crux to be an exposed rock section just above the hourglass covered with patchy snow, ice, and loose rock, as it required a few class 3-4 moves that were pretty sketchy given the conditions and steepness of the terrain. The final pitch to the summit was the steepest with the current snow conditions, rivaled by the loaded upper section of the first couloir from the lake. We didn't measure, but thinking 50-deg plus. There were also a couple mildly icy sections that were sketchy but still allowed front points. Would not recommend this route after another day or two knowing how quickly things are melting. But if you do go, start very early, snow softens by noon. We started at 3:45a and it took us 8hr 15 min lake-to-lake with breaking trail and kicking in steps. We did see one other group getting a very late start.. hoping they faired okay on the way down. And WEAR A HELMET, PEOPLE! We enjoyed this route, but would definitely never do it again, and would never ever consider setting foot on this route in the summer. The hourglass is a designed funnel deathtrap. This is not a peak to do if you're just looking to check it off your list. Regarding gear: full packs, mix of summer and winter conditions. Boots to lake, snowshoes around the lake and up to camp near the base of the first couloir, crampons and axe for most of remaining route, but did switch to spikes for the "traverse". Avvy danger was low, but we also brought beacons, probes, shovels, because why not? Mountaineering boots and semi/auto crampons highly recommended (I rented and would not have felt safe with my stiff-but-not hiking boots and strap-on crampons). |
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Route: Southwest Ridge Posted On: 2023-02-02, By: Chrisfish25 Info: Way too much hype in the bushwacking approach in Tobin creek. It's very tame. I've been on some horrendous schwaking adventure & this felt like a trail almost haha. No flotation needed. Dropped our snowshoes around 9,300ft. Ridge going up to south bear is mostly wind swept. Boulder hop. The traverse was incredible. There's a good bit of snow on the majority of it but it was easy to brush/kick off to find holds and placements. The crux climbing into hourglass notch can be done a way easier way but it was fun to climb! Great scramble, great day. Perfect weather. I don't know how to add pics.. but Instagram is chrisjfish & I have plenty to share through that. I'll try to figure out the pic thing. |
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Route: West Ridge and Southwest Face Posted On: 2023-01-29, By: JasonCrane Info: Blanca Group had dark storm clouds & severe winds on Saturday resulting in a change in plans to just do a 9-10 miles hike w/ 3k vert up into the Lake Como Gulch. I parked at 7.8k feet & booted Lake Como Road up to almost 11k. Road is 2WD to about 7.7k, where the road deteriorates into a bed of baseball-sized rocks. Road is dry and/or patchy snow up to 9k. Above 9k, there's about 2 feet of snow. A foot trail is trenched up past the relic log cabins to where I turned around at ~11k. Saw a Subaru Outback made it a ways up the road parked at one of those switchbacks near 9k feet. Unfortunately, wasn't able to collect any beta or photos of LB, Ellingwood or Blanca due to low churning storm clouds. |
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Route: Southwest Ridge Posted On: 2022-11-16, By: ccherry Info: Summitted via SW ridge. Route was mostly dry with little to no snow below treeline. Creek crossing at 9100' is mostly clear of willows but they are bad above 9100'. Not much snow along the top of the ridge up to South Little Bear, and the snow on the side of the ridge was not consolidated. There was some snow on the Momma Bear Traverse but not enough to cause significant difficulty- we were able to summit without using microspikes or ice axe. |
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Route: West Ridge and Southwest Face Posted On: 2022-10-03, By: dsr80304 Info: This report is probably a bit moot now as snow hit Sat night/Sunday right after this, but maybe useful to someone... Sat (10/1) morning the water down the middle of the hourglass was iced up, so you definitely had to stay left. Plus got hit was some graupel which wetted everything out a bit. But good climbing up. Down of course is trickier and had to use the rope as a hand hold for the steepest section. We did tie off one damaged section of the main white rope for what it's worth. There's only a single pieced together rope up there right now. Only one "natural" rock came through the hourglass. Despite extreme care and waiting out those below us to clear, one small shift dislodged a rock down the HG which thankfully passed them safely... ugh. But again, there was at least a few inches of snow up there the night/day after this report. |
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Route: West Ridge and Southwest Face Posted On: 2022-09-18, By: Dignus Info: Small trickles of water and a few small ice patches in the hourglass. Easily avoidable but don't get caught off guard. Fairly well cairned along ridge and above hourglass but markers can be missed if you move too hastily. In my opinion the rope was more of a hindrance than a help as I didn't trust to use it but it made stepping across the gulley awkward at times. |
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Route: west ridge direct Posted On: 2022-09-06, By: zootloopz Info: went west ridge direct from saddle. mp calls it 5.4. very exposed. test everything. great warmup for lb to blanca. didn't bail to the hourglass at 13,800' and found myself in 5.5-5.6 terrain. heady stuff. people were knocking all sorts of shit into the hourglass. looks awful. |
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Route: West Ridge and Southwest Face Posted On: 2022-08-30, By: Ben-eood Info: The route is in great condition overall. The hourglass has some water running in the middle a little bit but there's plenty of room to the left to make it through on nice solid rock. The ropes that are present are in pretty rough shape and should probably only be trusted in an emergency. Its starting to cool off at the lake - it was a very nice evening, the low was about 35 degrees. Make sure you are conscious of the mice too, we didn't have any problems with them but there's a bunch of em and wouldn't want to make it easy for them to cause you problems. Bring your tenkara rod and some flies for sure - looks like you'd have a great time fishing the lake (can't say for sure because I brought my rod and no flies haha, fish were rising like crazy though). |
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Route: West Ridge and Southwest Face Posted On: 2022-08-29, By: Belchfire Info: Como approach sucks but not as bad as it's hyped up to be. Wet on road in lots of spots, some creek crossings, all rock crossing-able. Rained Fri 5-8, dry all day Saturday. Hourglass gushing water and loose especially up high (anything new?). Traverse was dry when we got up there. Terrifying but incredible. Stay on Ellingwood cairns (yes, ridge ALL the way to the face route on descent) or you're gonna have a bad time. Traverse had ~15 people all day, party on Blanca, on Ellingwood, and at Como. |
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Route: West Ridge and Southwest Face Posted On: 2022-08-22, By: bsiegs Info: I counted 5 of us total on LB today - likely due to a Monday with an iffy forecast. The gully up from the lake is really, REALLY loose but dry. Hourglass had a ton of rushing water down the middle (as expected with recent rains) but left side was mostly dry. Was happy to be in approach shoes. The fixed ropes appear to be holding up well, apart from the one older one. I used them a bit on the ascent and a lot on the descent. There was heavy fog/mist that seemed to kinda hover throughout the day, it impeded visibility a bit but not to the point of hazard. As you might guess, stretches of Como road and the lake area itself are extremely saturated and muddy. Day hiked so not sure what campsites look like specifically. |
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Route: SW Ridge Posted On: 2022-08-19, By: ndomke Info: SW ridge on Little Bear on 8/18 - beautiful day out with no afternoon storms. I parked about 1.5 miles up the Como road and walked up to 8,800 and turned right on the old road through the forest. I followed it as much as I could at 4:00 AM to a creek crossing just below Tobin Creek Falls. Then it was a lot of climbing on talus. Steep and slippery lichen-covered talus on the way up to the ridge then the ridge is broad up over the first few points on the ridge. Fun scrambling on the ridge traverse from below South Little Bear over to Little Bear. I thought it was solid class 3+ climbing but it was pretty exposed in spots. From around 8,000 at the TH, it was almost 15 miles and 7,500 feet of elevation gain. Fun day out and I thought it was a good option to do Little Bear in a single push from pretty low on the road. |
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Route: West Ridge and Southwest Face Posted On: 2022-08-15, By: jfm3 Info: I climbed Little Bear via the Hourglass and used the fixed ropes on the ascent and descent. I never fully weighted the lines, but having a solid point of contact with one hand was helpful on the descent. One of the ropes is completely frayed about 2/3 of the way down the Hourglass. The other is in good shape. The anchor looks relatively new and solid. There was water flowing down the middle of the Hourglass. |
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Route: West Ridge and Southwest Face Posted On: 2022-08-09, By: ncxhjhgvbi Info: An update from the last report - still a ton of moisture up there but the creek crossing is easily passable again. Marshy around the lake, but mosquitoes weren't an issue passing through. They were actually worse at the 10,100' parking spots where we camped. Hourglass still wet and we chose to climb left of the crux up and crab walk/butt scoot through the water on the way down like many others have mentioned. With approach shoes we were surprised how grippy the rock was even in the flowing water. Pretty much every 6 inches or so in any direction has a white mark from rockfall. Glad I never have to drive that road or be in that gulley ever again! |
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Route: West Ridge and Southwest Face Posted On: 2022-08-02, By: ladnerkm Info: We camped at Lake Como 7/31 and climbed LB 8/1. It hailed on the 3 peaks night of 7/30. Per reports Blanca had a foot deep in spots for hikers 7/31. The creeks are running very high and the marsh around the lake is saturated. We needed to use a log crossing above the standard 4wd road crossing on the lake como approach, as it was impassable. The good news is we ran in to no hail or ice on LB on 8/1. The hourglass was very wet as expected so it was nice to have 2 ropes in good condition, especially for the descent. |
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Route: West Ridge and Southwest Face Posted On: 2022-07-25, By: ckaplan01 Info: Jrs' report covers most of it. Road is rough; parked at around 8,800 and hiked in from there. An insane amount of mosquitos by the lake. Fish were jumping like mad. We stayed right in the approach gully, which ended up being quite doable on both ascent and descent. Hourglass was fun and engaging. Climbed without gear and rope, staying left at the anchor, climber's left, to both ascend and downclimb. Minimal water in the Hourglass. |
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Route: West Ridge and Southwest Face Posted On: 2022-07-25, By: jrs1965 Info: Climbed Little Bear on Saturday, the 23rd. The road still suxs. The Lake Como area probably has the most mosquitos I've ever experienced in Colorado. The lake is loaded with trout. We started at 3:30 AM to try and get ahead of any other parties. It worked. Hourglass wasn't too bad going up. The previously mentioned red, 300 foot, 6 mm cord was gone. The 8 mm burgundy rope which was mentioned on the 14ers.com fb page was still there. It had taken a few hits from rock fall and the core was showing. Also, a black and red 11 mm that was really beat-up and tied into an older, even more beat up rope was there. I thought the most challenging portion of the route was above the Hourglass. On our ascent, we went to the left at the anchor station. We went too far left after the anchor and ended up in some really crappy terrain. We topped out on the ridge about 30 feet to the west of the actual summit at 8 AM. On descent, we followed the route on "Photo #18" of the route description and ended up on the east side of the rappel station. Other than a ton of loose rock, this was a good descent. At the rappel station, I used an oval quick link to tie into the two anchor cables, and my own 100 meter/328 foot, 6 mm cord that was doubled over to rappel to the ledge area which is about 3/4 of the way down the Hourglass. This worked well for us, and we were able to quickly, and safely clear out of the Hourglass. The rest of the descent and walkout was an uneventful suffer-fest. |