Little Bear Peak Trip Report 06/15/2009

Report Type	Full
Peak(s)	Little Bear Peak - 14,041 feet Blanca Peak - 14,350 feet
Date Posted	06/15/2009
Date Climbed	06/13/2009
Author	Daniel Trugman

LB-Blanca Traverse
Little Bear & Blanca: The Hourglass and the Traverse Party: Jason Halladay, Daniel Trugman Note: all pictures were taken by JH as he is the expert photographer and faster hiker (and therefore has time to kill while waiting for me to catch up Jason and I set this weekend aside more than a month ago to do some alpine climbing in Colorado. It was decided upon to do the LB-Blanca ridge as we initially had such a large party that going roped climbing would be dangerously inefficient. Sure enough, person after person ended up bailing, but we remained psyched to do the classic 14er traverse. It would be a first for me, but the Traverse was a favorite of Jason's and as such it would be his fourth time on it. It was certainly comforting to have a partner who knew the route well. As we drove up from New Mexico, I was anxious about the snow conditions of the Traverse as the most recent pictures I'd seen had shown a fair amount of snow on the ridge proper. But Jason remained (correctly) optimistic about our chances to fire off the traverse even with a little snow hindering our progress. The combination of a quality 4WD vehicle (stock Nissan XTerra) and Jason's driving skill enabled us to drive all the way to 10,000 feet on the infamous Lake Como road, cutting significant time off of our approach. Because it took only ninety minutes to reach Lake Como at our leisurely pace, we had a whole afternoon to kill in the beautiful basin presided over by awesome west face of Little Bear. After setting up camp, our attention turned to finding some fun bouldering lines to mess around on. While I wouldn't exactly call the Lake Como basin a bouldering destination we had a good time sending in our hiking shoes and facetiously projecting easy lines. Me on the FA of sit-start to "Como Estas" It was fun just to explore the lower basin and take some pictures of the mountains from angles that aren't seen on the trade routes. Eyeing the approach gully to the SW ridge Ellingwood, Blanca, LB We eventually ate dinner and chased good light around the lake to get some incredible shots of Little Bear as the sun set. Neither of us slept very well that night but we were nevertheless ready to hit the trail at 6am. Interestingly enough, although Jason had climbed Little Bear three times previously, he had never been up the standard Hourglass route. He's all about the Northwest Face, apparently. Anyways, we couldn't have caught the SW ridge/Hourglass route in better conditions; the initial approach gully (which is ordinarily filled with unpleasant scree and loose blocks) was covered in a fine layer of hard snow, replete with kick-steps already in place. My pack felt super heavy as I was carrying another pair of shoes in my pack to supplement my cumbersome plastic mountaineering boots. Despite this, we made pretty good time, reaching the top of the gully after about forty minutes. The fun ridge walk between this gully and the hourglass was tough for me in my plastic boots, and made me thankful that I had a different pair of shoes for the Traverse. The snow was gone for a while so we were glad we hadn't taken the time to put on our crampons before the first snow gully. We eventually took a break just before the rock turned back to snow, taking an early opportunity to don crampons. My crampons are probably too small for my boots so it takes me a while to get them on even in normal conditions, but to make matters worse, I accidentally knocked a water bottle out of my pack and it went sliding down the slippery slope . D'oh! It thankfully got stopped on a ledge 100 ft below us, and Jason volunteered to go retrieve it while I finished up with my crampons. Thanks dude! Hoping I got my clumsiness for the day over with, I followed Jason up the ever steepening slope to the Hourglass. The conditions turned out to be perfect, making the crux Hourglass pitch a casual and enjoyable snow climb. I recommend to anyone concerned about climbing Little Bear to do try it in these conditions. What a great snow route! Although the summer route meanders left and then right up class three ledges after the Hourglass, we opted to stay high right, climbing a hundred more feet of steep snow before arcing left over more moderate terrain. Heading right instead of left This turned out to be the right decision, and we climbed great Styrofoam snow all the way to the summit. Nearing the top Jason on the summit of LB, 4th time! The traverse We made decent time all the way from the lake, topping out at 8:40am. It was decision time for Traverse, and Jason was confident it would go, so after tediously shoving my mountaineering boots into my pack and lacing up my approach shoes, we were ready to go at 9:15. The initial downclimb off of Little Bear is one of the route's cruxes, and was made no easier by snow blocking some easier paths one could usually take below the ridge crest. Perhaps the most technical move of the Traverse appeared only five minutes from the summit of Little Bear, involving the downclimb of an exposed and vertical handcrack. This was the only place on the traverse for which I decided to remove my pack. I'm told that these moves are generally avoided by dropping on the left side of the ridge, which was impossible because of snow. This initial trickiness was followed in quick succession by the scariest moves on the traverse (in my opinion) - a sickeningly exposed knife-edge that sloped downhill at thirty degrees. My heavy pack made straddling the knife-edge the only option that felt balanced, but it was still terrifying moving out of this position and back onto the west face. Airy and scary downward sloping knife-edge. Fun! From here, the real meat of the traverse begins - lots of exposed third and fourth class climbing on the very apex of the ridge. Nothing is too difficult, but any fall would certainly be fatal. Often, our only option was to climb directly over towers instead of bypassing them, which would have been too sketchy in the loose snow. There was even some snow on the ridge crest, turning sections that should have been cruiser into scary mental challenges. The difficult eased up for a bit and we eventually dropped onto the east side of the ridge to bypass a prominent tower. This was good fun as the bypass was all on exposed but quality snow. We got psyched for the final exposure crux and headed up snowy ledges to the zenith of the final tower. Jason, an uber-fit ultra-athlete, not only stomps me on easy but physically taxing terrain, but is also a poised and brilliant scrambler. He had already crossed the one hundred feet of nauseating terrain before I got to the beginning of it. "Where is the crux?" I asked him. "Between you and me. You've got this, dude", he replied. Exposure time! I took a few deep breaths and headed across the knife-edge. The moves just seemed to fall into place and suited my style exactly - balancy but not awkward. It was tremendously exposed but all the moves seemed to fall into place for me. Breathing a sigh of relief once I reached Jason, I assumed we were done with the trickiness, but snow covered the rest of the ridge, including some exposed narrow sections. Eventually the ridge became less well defined and a short but sweet snow climb up easier terrain led us to the summit of Blanca (1pm). Last steps up Blanca Jason on the summit of Blanca. 6th time! Me on the summit of Blanca with Lindsey in the background We opted out of doing Ellingwood as we wanted to hike out after getting down to camp and the weather wasn't looking great. It took us much longer (3 hrs, 45 min) to do the Traverse than it usually takes Jason - partly because of the snow, but mostly because I'm a wuss. Ha. The descent off of Blanca was easy and fun, with a few convenient glissades. I live for this... I was worried about the possibility of post-holing on the lower terrain, but it never really was a problem. It took us a little less than two hours to reach the lake. We packed up and hit the road once again. Although the hike wasn't far, it felt like it went on forever. I was sure glad that we had parked as high as we did. We reached the car at 5pm and headed drove to Alamosa for some well-deserved burgers and prepped for some ill-fated granite cragging at Tres Piedras (NM) the next day. Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):

LB-Blanca Traverse

Little Bear & Blanca: The Hourglass and the Traverse
Party: Jason Halladay, Daniel Trugman
Note: all pictures were taken by JH as he is the expert photographer and faster hiker (and therefore has time to kill while waiting for me to catch up

Jason and I set this weekend aside more than a month ago to do some alpine climbing in Colorado. It was decided upon to do the LB-Blanca ridge as we initially had such a large party that going roped climbing would be dangerously inefficient. Sure enough, person after person ended up bailing, but we remained psyched to do the classic 14er traverse. It would be a first for me, but the Traverse was a favorite of Jason's and as such it would be his fourth time on it. It was certainly comforting to have a partner who knew the route well.

As we drove up from New Mexico, I was anxious about the snow conditions of the Traverse as the most recent pictures I'd seen had shown a fair amount of snow on the ridge proper. But Jason remained (correctly) optimistic about our chances to fire off the traverse even with a little snow hindering our progress.

The combination of a quality 4WD vehicle (stock Nissan XTerra) and Jason's driving skill enabled us to drive all the way to 10,000 feet on the infamous Lake Como road, cutting significant time off of our approach. Because it took only ninety minutes to reach Lake Como at our leisurely pace, we had a whole afternoon to kill in the beautiful basin presided over by awesome west face of Little Bear.

After setting up camp, our attention turned to finding some fun bouldering lines to mess around on. While I wouldn't exactly call the Lake Como basin a bouldering destination we had a good time sending in our hiking shoes and facetiously projecting easy lines.

Me on the FA of sit-start to "Como Estas"

It was fun just to explore the lower basin and take some pictures of the mountains from angles that aren't seen on the trade routes.

Eyeing the approach gully to the SW ridge

Ellingwood, Blanca, LB

We eventually ate dinner and chased good light around the lake to get some incredible shots of Little Bear as the sun set.

Neither of us slept very well that night but we were nevertheless ready to hit the trail at 6am. Interestingly enough, although Jason had climbed Little Bear three times previously, he had never been up the standard Hourglass route. He's all about the Northwest Face, apparently. Anyways, we couldn't have caught the SW ridge/Hourglass route in better conditions; the initial approach gully (which is ordinarily filled with unpleasant scree and loose blocks) was covered in a fine layer of hard snow, replete with kick-steps already in place. My pack felt super heavy as I was carrying another pair of shoes in my pack to supplement my cumbersome plastic mountaineering boots. Despite this, we made pretty good time, reaching the top of the gully after about forty minutes.

The fun ridge walk between this gully and the hourglass was tough for me in my plastic boots, and made me thankful that I had a different pair of shoes for the Traverse.

The snow was gone for a while so we were glad we hadn't taken the time to put on our crampons before the first snow gully. We eventually took a break just before the rock turned back to snow, taking an early opportunity to don crampons. My crampons are probably too small for my boots so it takes me a while to get them on even in normal conditions, but to make matters worse, I accidentally knocked a water bottle out of my pack and it went sliding down the slippery slope . D'oh! It thankfully got stopped on a ledge 100 ft below us, and Jason volunteered to go retrieve it while I finished up with my crampons. Thanks dude!
Hoping I got my clumsiness for the day over with, I followed Jason up the ever steepening slope to the Hourglass. The conditions turned out to be perfect, making the crux Hourglass pitch a casual and enjoyable snow climb.

I recommend to anyone concerned about climbing Little Bear to do try it in these conditions. What a great snow route!
Although the summer route meanders left and then right up class three ledges after the Hourglass, we opted to stay high right, climbing a hundred more feet of steep snow before arcing left over more moderate terrain.

Heading right instead of left

This turned out to be the right decision, and we climbed great Styrofoam snow all the way to the summit.

Nearing the top

Jason on the summit of LB, 4th time!

The traverse

We made decent time all the way from the lake, topping out at 8:40am. It was decision time for Traverse, and Jason was confident it would go, so after tediously shoving my mountaineering boots into my pack and lacing up my approach shoes, we were ready to go at 9:15.
The initial downclimb off of Little Bear is one of the route's cruxes, and was made no easier by snow blocking some easier paths one could usually take below the ridge crest.

Perhaps the most technical move of the Traverse appeared only five minutes from the summit of Little Bear, involving the downclimb of an exposed and vertical handcrack. This was the only place on the traverse for which I decided to remove my pack. I'm told that these moves are generally avoided by dropping on the left side of the ridge, which was impossible because of snow.

This initial trickiness was followed in quick succession by the scariest moves on the traverse (in my opinion) - a sickeningly exposed knife-edge that sloped downhill at thirty degrees. My heavy pack made straddling the knife-edge the only option that felt balanced, but it was still terrifying moving out of this position and back onto the west face.

Airy and scary downward sloping knife-edge. Fun!

From here, the real meat of the traverse begins - lots of exposed third and fourth class climbing on the very apex of the ridge. Nothing is too difficult, but any fall would certainly be fatal.

Often, our only option was to climb directly over towers instead of bypassing them, which would have been too sketchy in the loose snow. There was even some snow on the ridge crest, turning sections that should have been cruiser into scary mental challenges. The difficult eased up for a bit and we eventually dropped onto the east side of the ridge to bypass a prominent tower. This was good fun as the bypass was all on exposed but quality snow.

We got psyched for the final exposure crux and headed up snowy ledges to the zenith of the final tower. Jason, an uber-fit ultra-athlete, not only stomps me on easy but physically taxing terrain, but is also a poised and brilliant scrambler. He had already crossed the one hundred feet of nauseating terrain before I got to the beginning of it.
"Where is the crux?" I asked him.
"Between you and me. You've got this, dude", he replied.

Exposure time!

I took a few deep breaths and headed across the knife-edge. The moves just seemed to fall into place and suited my style exactly - balancy but not awkward. It was tremendously exposed but all the moves seemed to fall into place for me. Breathing a sigh of relief once I reached Jason, I assumed we were done with the trickiness, but snow covered the rest of the ridge, including some exposed narrow sections. Eventually the ridge became less well defined and a short but sweet snow climb up easier terrain led us to the summit of Blanca (1pm).

Last steps up Blanca

Jason on the summit of Blanca. 6th time!

Me on the summit of Blanca with Lindsey in the background

We opted out of doing Ellingwood as we wanted to hike out after getting down to camp and the weather wasn't looking great. It took us much longer (3 hrs, 45 min) to do the Traverse than it usually takes Jason - partly because of the snow, but mostly because I'm a wuss. Ha.
The descent off of Blanca was easy and fun, with a few convenient glissades.

I live for this...

I was worried about the possibility of post-holing on the lower terrain, but it never really was a problem. It took us a little less than two hours to reach the lake. We packed up and hit the road once again. Although the hike wasn't far, it felt like it went on forever. I was sure glad that we had parked as high as we did. We reached the car at 5pm and headed drove to Alamosa for some well-deserved burgers and prepped for some ill-fated granite cragging at Tres Piedras (NM) the next day.

Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):

Comments or Questions

Daniel Trugman	Thanks 6/15/2009 5:35pm Yes, there was continuous snow and it didn‘t look like it was going anywhere. Have fun!
cftbq	Nice to read 6/15/2009 6:39pm Hell, if I could get a partner with Jason‘s experience to put up with me, I‘d give the LB-B traverse a go! Maybe some day... Congratulations!
Jason Halladay	Well worded 6/15/2009 7:29pm Nicely written up, Daniel. It was a super fun outing and you‘re certainly not a wuss, c‘mon. I‘m guessing that, like the SLC guys up there, most folks would have looked at the traverse with the additional snow and turned back. I‘m glad it wasn‘t much of an issue along the way with the exception of a few spots. cftbq, give it some thought and find a weekend with a good forecast and go for it...taking your time and being deliberate. It‘s never terribly difficult, just way exposed at times.
doumall	Nice Showing 6/15/2009 8:53pm What a great route!
ossie322	Nice job 6/15/2009 11:57pm Good to see you back up in CO rocking some more 14ers! Next time you come up let Ben and I know and maybe we can plan something fun.
benners	Good Stuff Daniel! 6/16/2009 12:38am Quite an amazing and rewarding route no doubt. Way to flash it in June, and get a snow climb of LB!
Daniel Trugman	Thanks guys! 6/16/2009 2:55am Yeah I might be looking to finish my other two traverses so I‘ll hit you two up for sure if I end going without my parents. Nice to talk to you guys again!
Ski4me	Nice! 6/16/2009 4:15am I will be using this report for needed beta next year. Thanks for the report and great pics. Once again, sorry we did not see you while we were over on Lindsey.
bckcntryskr	Great TR 6/16/2009 2:27pm Well written, lets the reader feel like they were there.
CincyBearcats	Unbelievable! 6/16/2009 2:38pm Very nicely done. It‘s very humbling for us mere mortals to see a Herculean effort like this. Sarah and I have been closely watching those conditions for the past few weeks, but we could never muster the courage to actually do it. The thought of snow in the hourglass is comforting, but the thought of snow on the traverse is downright frightening. Kudos!
Connor	Wow! 6/16/2009 7:35pm Did the travers in september last year, quite spicy without snow. Monumental accomplishment!
Jason Halladay	night and day 6/16/2009 10:13pm I realized this photo is one I took in June 2006. Quite a huge difference this year:
Daniel Trugman	which begs the question... 6/16/2009 10:43pm Was 06 just an extremely dry year, or is 09 a very wet year, or somewhere in between?
lordhelmut	2006 photo 6/18/2009 12:02am not only is that an incredible difference in snow, but that is probably the best shot I‘ve ever seen of the Blanca Group and from an amazing direction. Which peak was this taken from?
Jason Halladay	Low snow year 6/18/2009 3:46am 2006 was indeed a very low snow year all around so it‘s probably not too fair to compare that year to this but... Thanks lordhelmut. I took that shot from highway 285/sh17 near La Jara, CO in late evening with a camera with a big zoom. The light that evening was awesome and very dramatic on the ridges surrounding the Blanca group.
ossie322	That photo is awesome... 6/22/2009 5:19pm I agree that it is amazing to see that group from this side. Love it.
mchapuis	Climbing Blanca July 4th 6/23/2009 4:11am I‘m attempting Blanca on July 4th. I‘m just doing the standard route. This is my first 14er. Should I bring a helmet on this climb? My other question is should I bring something more than just hiking poles with baskets on them for the snow. From this report there looks like there‘s alot of snow still. Is this the case on the standard NW Como Lake route to the top of Blanca. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks
Daniel Trugman	Re: Climbing Blanca July 4th 6/23/2009 1:41pm A helmet is never a bad idea but is probably not a requirement. My rule of thumb is that if I‘m not sure, I‘ll bring it. An ice axe may be useful if there is still a lot of snow up there, which I expect there will be. We descended the standard route up Blanca and as such our last two pictures are of that route.
Presto	My dear, Mr. Trugman: 11/30/2010 5:28pm A "wuss" would never complete that traverse in those conditions (or anytime for that matter). Way to knock it down in less than stellar conditions. Thanks for posting! Happy Trails! :D
Gueza	Nice report! 3/4/2012 6:31pm So continuous snow to the summit of LB via the hourglass eh? Great pictures and thanks for the report. I‘m thinking of heading up there this week.

Caution: The information contained in this report may not be accurate and should not be the only resource used in preparation for your climb. Failure to have the necessary experience, physical conditioning, supplies or equipment can result in injury or death. 14ers.com and the author(s) of this report provide no warranties, either express or implied, that the information provided is accurate or reliable. By using the information provided, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless 14ers.com and the report author(s) with respect to any claims and demands against them, including any attorney fees and expenses. Please read the 14ers.com Safety and Disclaimer pages for more information.

Please respect private property: 14ers.com supports the rights of private landowners to determine how and by whom their land will be used. In Colorado, it is your responsibility to determine if land is private and to obtain the appropriate permission before entering the property.

14ers.com

Social

Mobile App