PART I - THE GASH RIDGE TO BLANCA

When a new Lidar 13er was created out of a ridge line, the route up it didn't look particularly interesting - a choice between 2 very chossy gullies - but I noticed that this new creation was on the connecting ridge with Blanca and Ellingwood. And I've been meaning to do the Gash ridge for a long time. Shawn didn't need much convincing to do an airy scramble, and we were just waiting for a perfect weather window (the forecast for the day was 10% chance of rain after 3pm). We arrived at the Lily Lake TH the night before, and did an early start (for us) at about 5.30 am, still in the dark.

To save on weight, we decided not to bring climbing shoes or a rope/harness, but carried 15' of webbing. I wanted to have a handline in case I got sketched out and it worked out well for us.

We followed the trail that I first took back in 2011 when we went looking for Mt Lindsey - essentially, Lynn and I did the scouting for the Gash ridge approach :) The scrambling commenced just 2 hours after leaving the trailhead, as we took the North ridge to Pt 13,380 as outlined in the excellent TR by Old Trad. From the start, I knew it's going to be a marathon, not a sprint, so I decided to employ the route finding techniques to save some energy, while Shawn was in his usual POMR mode and stuck to the ridge proper for the entirety of the loop. My strategy was to do the unavoidable cruxes, and utilize the reasonable shortcuts whenever possible to stay efficient and keep moving. Up to Pt 13,380 my strategy was to trail just below the ridge line on the left side, so for the most part it was class 3 terrain, but on couple of occasions, I had to stash the poles and do a couple class 4+ moves.

After Pt 13,380 I stayed on the left (sunny) side of the ridge utilizing small ledges when possible to bypass a few of ridge difficulties. Of course, in some cases the ridge obstacles were unavoidable. For the most part, the ridge difficulty was at a comfortable Class 3 level, punctuated by a few harder and more exposed sections, the most challenging being downclimb into the Gash and the climb out of it. I think for taller people it is probably easier, for me (at 5'3") it felt around 5.6. Shawn said if felt like Class 4 for him (at 6'3''). We brought about 15' of webbing and I was glad I had it for the downclimb. The ramp off the ridge on the left (sunny) side led to a solid looking anchor. I tied a webbing there and used it as a handline, which was just long enough, while Shawn later untied it and downclimbed facing out.

After dispatching the Gash, we arrived at the base of the "Slabs" that are described in other reports. Being in trailrunners, this section looked harder than what I was comfortable doing without climbing shoes, so I opted to traverse just 20-30 feet to the left to a much more comfortable class 3 terrain. I wanted to save some energy for the North ridge of Ellingwood Point, while Shawn continued to enjoy the harder scrambling.

We arrived at the solitary summit of Blanca just after noon, 4th time for me and first time for Shawn.

PART II - NORTH RIDGE ON ELLINGWOOD POINT

After a brief stay on the Blanca summit, we continued to the Ellingwood Point. The goal was to descend the North ridge and then traverse to the newly created Lidar 13er. I have done the standard (low) traverse between Blanca and Ellingwood before and was looking forward to a great 14er trail. Shawn ignored it for the most part and stayed high on the traverse. I thought it was too much work :) He still arrived to the summit of Ellingwood Point ahead of me.

After a 40 minute summit break, we were ready to tackle the North ridge. There are different opinions about the North ridge, but we found it fairly straightforward and actually a bit easier and shorter than the Gash ridge. North ridge shares the start with the Zapata lake trail descent until 13,600 ft. The crux is the next 200 feet of the ridge and felt to me like Class 4 (maybe 5.0 depending on the line choice). I put a short route description on Mountain Project. At 13,600 feet, there will be a Class 4 chimney dropping to the right (NE) that we downclimbed. After that, we descended directly north on the spine of the ridge, downclimbing slabs with plenty of holds (Class 4-5.0 depending on the line, as many options are available).

I went first on the chimney downclimb in case I wanted a webbing handline from Shawn, but it wasn't needed.

Past the slabs and around 13,400 ft, the ridge difficulties became optional. It was already past 3pm and we were scrambling for 8 hours, so I opted to skip the difficulties in order to stay efficient and keep moving, while Shawn stayed the ridge proper. He was starting to slow down though.

We finally reached the new Lidar 13er UN 13,656 11 hours after leaving the trailhead. The weather was deteriorating for some time, and it finally hailed on us on the summit, so the summit stay was brief (we also wanted to get back to the trailhead before darkness). The descent was as bad as anticipated with lots of loose rock (but not loose enough for scree skiing). We also ran out of water, so we stopped at the beautiful Lily Lake for a refill. Soon afterwards the weather cleared and we enjoyed a pleasant cruise back to the trailhead on a nice Lily Lake trail (only then I realized that the trail we took in the morning was not the proper Lily Lake trail).

This trip was definitely a highlight of the summer hiking season for me and the Gash ridge lived up to it's reputation. I didn't mind at all that the North ridge was slightly easier than expected and made for a great descent route back to the Huerfano River drainage. The following day, starting around 10 am, we did a grassy stroll to the summit of the nearby UN 13,557 and enjoyed the Sangres views one more time.

Our splits:

Lily Lake TH start - 5.30 am, base of North Ridge of Pt 13,380 - 7.15 am, leave Pt 13,380 - 9.50 am after a break, summit of Blanca - 12.15 am, summit of Ellingwood point -- 1.30 pm, left EP after 2pm, end of North ridge difficulties - 3pm, new Lidar 13er - 4.30 pm, Lily lake (filtered water) 6-6.30pm, TH - 8pm