Little Bear Southwest Ridge: Anticipation and Reflection

Trailhead: ~8500ft up Lake Como Rd
Distance: ~10mi
Elevation gain: 6000+ ft
YDS class: Class 3

I don't envision this report disclosing much new beta for the Little Bear Southwest Ridge route, but I really enjoyed this trip this past "winter" and figured I would enjoy writing about it as well. After my prior research I came away with a handful of assumptions that didn't quite match up with my experience on the ground, so I thought I would share those discrepancies too. Within the discourse about the best way up this mountain, whether the newfangled West Ridge Indirect or classic "bowling alley" Hourglass, in conclusion I wanted take some space to consider what made this a worthwhile route.

There are two possible trailheads to begin this route from. One is simply at some point at or below ~8900ft off Lake Como Road, and the other I'm not sure I should say here due to some stated private road concerns, but it's been well-enough noted elsewhere. According to trailhead reports for Lake Como, there had been multiple break-ins on the road within the past year. This weighed on my decision-making for my starting point: would it be safer to park in the less-used trailhead further away from the Lake Como bustle? Or might the thief actually live in the nearby subdivision where the secret trailhead is?

Well, as it turns out, he doesn't live there but in Alamosa County Jail. With the aid of a bit of high-tech sleuthing from our very own Boss Man, in October 2025 a multi-agency manhunt captured the perpetrator who was also a fugitive child sexual assailant. Apparently he had been hiding out in the wilderness around the Blanca massif opportunistically picking off cars and SLV homes before his arrest. User dbolton whose report I reference later found a hammock with an elk pelt, blanket and pack near Tobin Creek--I wonder if this had served as the offender's hideout at the time.

But without knowing that then, I decided to go with the better-known devil of the rocky road to Lake Como and cross my fingers in hopes of leaving my car untouched. The smooth cobblestone roadbed made for an interesting liquid feel, like I was driving through a marsh instead of high desert as my Subaru flowed this way and that over the loose round rocks.

At 8500ft I arrived at a feature of alternating potholes that lasted for about 75ft. I made several valiant efforts at climbing over the rutted craters, but the unanchored stones didn't provide much traction. I retreated and car camped for the night at a pullout just below this feature. I was hoping to go about 0.7mi further to get to around 8800-8900ft, but it was satisfying to cover as much mileage as I did towards the following day's big push.

Much has been said, or rather groaned, about the bushwhack to get to the base of the southwest ridge. I found Wentzl's report describing an ATV trail branching off the Lake Como Road at around 8900ft reassuring, and dbolton's report even hosts a GPX file linking up these roads and drainages to Tobin Falls at the toe of the ridge.

At first sunhit the next morning I set off across the savannah-like scrub on a diagonal heading towards the GPX route. Very quickly I learned which bushes were thorny and which were just grabby. After hurdling a few shallow drainages I stumbled upon the wide offroad trail.

The road clearly continued through the shady scrub until it veered away from the mountain. At this point a well-trod deer trail continued in the direction I was supposed to be going. After this I don't really remember what specific features I went through or turns I made, but I kept threading these game trails, drainages, and stretches of road together heading in the general direction of Tobin Falls while glancing at dbolton's GPX to keep from straying too far. I didn't see all the landmarks that these users pointed out in their reports, but I did recognize some, especially a flat pasturing area close to Tobin Creek. The brush wasn't very thick at all for the most part, but it did get more hemmed as I approached the ravine down to Tobin Creek.

I admired the debris from cowboy camps scattered throughout the trail system and wondered how old some of these trails with ATV tracks really were. Hispano settlement of the San Luis Valley started in the 1850s following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that concluded the Mexican-American War. I wondered how many vaqueros from this period had laid out their bedrolls in the same spots where rusty cans and buckets now lie.

The banks of Tobin Creek close to the falls are steep and require some 20-30ft of descent. Crossing this creek issued frequent complaints on trip reports and I could clearly see why. The creekbed was huddled with hulking tangly bushes revealing no visible break to the opposite bank. I at least found a possibly human-made ramp down to the bottom of the ravine. Taking another page from dbolton's report, I threaded through the vegetation to ford the creek at the waterfall hoping for clearer passage. The cascade with its colorful water markings on smoothed stone was a welcome bonus to see, and indeed no brush impeded my path as I hopped across a small defunct dam to the other side.

As a trade-off for the free crossing, I then had to squeeze past a wide-reaching juniper and ascend a mini-Hourglass sort of stone gully to exit the Tobin drainage and arrive upon the lower SW ridge. This lower slope began the steepest part of the route outside the later class-3 terrain. The south-facing underbrush must not recover quickly beneath even the few hikers that visit as precariously loose dirt trails wind through cactus patches and pokey evergreens. The ridge angle eased after navigating a rocky outcropping above the steep scrub and the terrain in turn shifted to taller pines and spongy needles underfoot.

There is a little flat spot at around 10,500 with an old bivvy site made up of twisting sun-bleached logs surrounded by funnel-shaped mineral test sites. Judging from the proximity of these artifacts, I wondered if a prospector in the mining boom days had tried his fortune here excavating by day and sheltering from the elements at night.

Further up the ridge I encountered a robust aspen colony which I hadn't noticed from previous trip reports. The forest provided easier travelling than tiptoeing over talus blocks closer to the ridge proper.

Eventually the overstory thinned into a tower of talus stretching up into the sky. A 1500ft rise lay between me and my first glimpse of the day's objective. I passed some deeper mining test pits and took advantage of the last bit of shade under some resolute trees to drop snow in my hat and down my shirt. While I certainly wouldn't normally do this in winter of all seasons, a heat dome currently loomed over the region cooking temps up some 20 degrees above average.

As I continued past the ridge's last fingers of verdure, I noticed an oddity at my feet among the talus. I've gone on a couple trailbuilding volunteer trips now with CFI, and one of my favorite parts of the laborious work is pounding rocks into "crush" to help stabilize check steps. I saw what appeared to be a trail of unnaturally crushed rock leading up the ridge. This was less visible in some sections but still consistent enough that it looked planned. I remembered hearing that the SW ridge starting from an area now occupied by Trinchera Ranch used to be the standard route up Little Bear. I wondered if this crush trail was evidence of early trailblazing up this blocky mass.

At last upon the 12,900ft point atop the ridge I was graced with the sight of Little Bear crowning the Tobin Creek basin. I also noticed a few colorful dots coming my way. Usually winter peakbagging is a lonely affair especially on less-travelled peaks, but with it being so warm and so low snowpack in the Sangres it's not surprising others had the same objective on the last day of winter. I ended up running into forum users Chipmunk, climbingcue, bigfoot1 and a bit later on "Capt. Underpants" Alec (thanks to my heat-fried brain I only thought of that joke later, unfortunately). Chipmunk said they had just climbed Ellingwood Pt the day before as well--badass! They assured me there was no snow on the traverse, relieving my anxiety about any patches up high turning into slip 'n' slides to the beyond in the sun and warmth.

It is still astounding looking at these pictures how little snow there was in the basin. This was supposed to be entering the snowiest time of the year, but one of the worst snowpacks in CO history had been especially unfavorable to the Sangres. A wobbly jet stream destabilized by accelerated Arctic warming released multiple heat waves in February and March, adding further injury to the dismal snowpack. Throughout the entire day I didn't need to touch snow once, and when I did it was intentionally to cool down.

There are a series of "camel hump" rolling features on the ridge that I either breezed over or skirted to the right. The talus stability was better than expected even on the hillside flanks and facilitated quick enough travel.

Above a notch at ~13,360ft the Class 3 scrambles began in earnest. The short knife-edge bit gets a lot of attention, but I found a handful of other features to be just as heads-up, if not more so. A couple of short leaps-of-faith and a blocky catwalk equally guard the ridge proper. The exposure to the right on the way up to Mama Bear wasn't extreme at all; even the knife edge had a mellow flatter bypass about 15ft below. But the left side certainly remained a no-fall zone into the Tobin Creek basin throughout the climb up.

Arriving atop S Little Bear left one last section for the day: the traverse to Little Bear proper. I hoped to stay off the precarious ridge crest and link up the ledges to the left as much as I could. Now the exposure orientation had flipped compared to the way up Mama Bear. The right side of the ridge tumbled into the abyss shared by Blanca Peak, while the left Tobin Creek basin was much less precipitous.

I was able to connect multiple ledges on the traverse helpfully highlighted in an oxidized orange. I didn't really take many helpful pictures of distinct features, but I thankfully found a GoPro Youtube video posted just the month before that showed some great detail. There was one section on the ridge proper about halfway through that didn't have nearby ledges. Saddling a series of lopsided yet sturdy light grey blocks with major exposure on both sides seemed the most energy-sensitive option.

The last major obstacle often discussed in other reports is the notch descending into the top of the Hourglass gully. Staying ridge proper meant descending via cracks in a smooth slab somewhat exposed to an uncontrolled fall into the chasm to the right. However, there is a well-protected downclimb down a short black chute found further to the left.

Just cutting across the top of the Hourglass gully made me not ever want to try it. On nearly every ledge there were loose brick-sized rocks perched and spaced in a way that reminded me of a flock of birds poised to take flight down the chute. It was at least assuring to observe that most people had taken care to not accidentally launch these onto climbers below. But there were just so many, and all it would take was one imperfect foot placement to send one or more soaring down.

Once at the Hourglass all that remains of the traverse is a short protected ascent to the Little Bear summit. From here I could peer into the Lake Como area for the first time, admire the full traverse to Blanca Peak, and even spot the sand dunes in the distance. With the afternoon being late I didn't stay for long. I retraced the easiest route back up the short black chute at the notch, over the exposed light grey crest blocks and across the orange ledges up to Mama Bear. A shallow cave amidst the ledges full of neon green and orange lichens mesmerized me in their vibrancy amongst otherwise dull and inhospitable alpine stone. I recovered my backpack left atop S Little Bear and hurried down the class-3 obstacles hoping to make it as far as I could with the remaining light.

I had filled up my whole 3L water bladder for the trip but ran out on the way down the camel humps. Thankfully I figured this would happen and stashed a Powerade just below treeline. About this time the wind conditions shifted compared to my balmy noontime ascent. The forum party I ran into earlier reported high winds on the upward talus push that morning, and now I understood why. At this point in the late afternoon, the deep Tobin basin had been shaded for some time now while the ridge remained baking in the sun. I figured the temperature variation enticed some major wind gusts that now whipped perpendicularly across the ridge. They were thankfully just strong and cold enough to put a pep in my step towards the shelter of treeline without blowing me off balance.

It was headlamp time when I arrived at my Powerade stash and dark when I reached the old prospector bivvy site. With my limited vision I left the ridge proper for the steep dirt section too soon and had to navigate some unpleasant boulders and deadfall. Then down on the loose dirt I took a banana-peel slip and landed in a cactus patch. Mercifully, my stashed jacket protected me from the worst of the prickles. I descended the rocky gully back down to the falls and regained the opposite bank about the same way I came up. I weaved through the brush until I found a passable dry drainage that dumped into the familiar ATV road network.

Once at the road I felt home free--I still had phone battery for the GPX track and I knew these trails and drainages linked up fairly easily. Sometimes the road I was on turned downhill instead of continuing to traverse the rolling gulches, but a well-trod game trail, old herding path or drainage continued generally towards Lake Como Road. Surprisingly, this road network was much easier to navigate in the dark than the bright morning, perhaps because distracting alternative paths were less obvious in my narrow headlamp beam. Still, my compass and track were especially helpful as the terrain could get disorienting.

When I knew I was on the final stretch of track I decided to stay on it until it reached Lake Como Road. I had little energy left to cut through the pinon brush diagonally back to my car. The open starry valley sky and whispering nocturnal breeze accompanied my hurried scuffling down the road. I arrived back at my car camp about 14.5 hours after I started and 12 hours before spring.

To summarize my expectations of this route and my actual experience of it:
--I thought the drive up the "babyhead" rocks on Lake Como Road would be rougher, but it actually felt fun. I still didn't make it up quite as far as I had hoped in my Outback though.
--I anticipated the bushwhack to be much more difficult than it really was both vegetation- and navigation-wise. Having a GPX file to field the labyrinth of roads and drainage trails helped significantly.
--I figured the talus on the upper SW ridge especially near the "camel humps" would be loose and bothersome but found it to be fairly stable even when sidehilling.
--I thought the knife edge feature heading up to S Little Bear was the main class 3 obstacle, but there were several others as well. The knife edge wasn't nearly as hairy as expected.
--The traverse over to Little Bear proper was much easier to navigate than I assumed, especially as aided by the rust-colored ledges and prior reports and videos.

Having been up a handful of summits now, there are some trips I feel especially proud of and remember most fondly. This will certainly be one of them, with another being Grays & Torreys from Loveland Pass. There's maybe an effort to enjoyment factor calculating that feeling in the background, with of course what qualifies as effort and enjoyment differing for each person. With 6k feet of gain, navigational challenges, and class 3 scrambling, Little Bear Southwest ridge definitely has its fair share of oomph as far as 14er routes go. Additionally, the pucker factor was manageable with only one section on the traverse being a bit nuts. The worst consequence of the combined steepest and loosest section was only becoming a pincushion for some poor cactus.

I feel that the undeveloped nature of this route accentuates the history behind the patchwork of trails across the washes and up the ridge too. As those who have spent time in the arid west know, environments like the San Luis Valley naturally preserve the past. It fascinated me to note how I advanced through succeeding eras of land use as I ascended in elevation: old cowboy camps at the foothills, mining investigations near treeline, and recreation on above. All in all, I found that with the right tools and skills the Southwest Ridge was a route worthy of its effort, and while I wouldn't necessarily do it again in a heartbeat, I will certainly treasure it in my memory.