Tom Grundy's Mount Blanca, Ellingwood, and Little Bear Page

9-13-15 This trifecta required a beefy serious off-road vehicle or a long hike. We did the long hike. First we had to get to the trailhead. We drove from Pueblo (where we had a very nice but brief break). I got to the turnoff first, by the time the PLC showed up it was raining. After a short bit up the dirt Lake Como road things started to get rocky. It looked like we would be driving up a path of bowling balls and the PLC was having trouble heading uphill at a certain grade - they could make slightly better headway in reverse. We parked seemingly way out in the desert away from the mountains and after a sorting gear for a while we started hiking up at 5:30 pm. Some of it was pretty tedious walking up loose cobblestones and then more steeply uphill. Lots of uphill. Most of it would have been ok to drive, but there were enough bad places that I certainly couldn't have passed including some really bad rocky bits. We got up to where we planned to camp after dark and set up the hoopla tent. That night it rained and I had an annoying drip on my face.

long distance view of the Crestones et al. from the Como Lake rd turnoff

following the PLC (driving in reverse) up towards the hike

the road really wasn't much fun to drive or walk on but at least it wasn't raining anymore

9-14-15 We got up early to a cold and gray morning. We were hiking early along an old mining road and then up into the cloud. We planned to climb Ellingwood but with the low visibility we weren't able to see the landmarks described in the route description. We ended up crossing a huge talus slope a little too high and then scrambling around on steep and icy loose rocks in a wet cloud with intermittent snow. It wasn't a good situation so we backed off and headed up the more obvious trail up Blanca. It was cold. Not a lot below freezing but with a strong wind and high humidity and not a lot of serious warm weather gear it was cold. I grew up in Cleveland, Sam in North Dakota, and Raquel in Puerto Rico, that means that one of us really wasn't used to cold, she also happened to be the smallest of us. She later said it was the coldest she had ever been in her life. It was cold enough I wanted to hike uphill quickly to generate heat and I didn't want to take out my camera to take photos even though it was a good time to take interesting photos. Luckily Sam took quite a few (which I might include here some day). I pushed ahead and got to the 14,345 ft summit before Sam and Raquel. This is the fourth tallest 14er in Colorado. Soon they came up for a few quick photos and some food in the lee of a big rock. There was cool rime ice forming on all sorts of surfaces including us - especially Sam's dreads. We were fully in the cloud so there really weren't any views beyond about 30 or 50 feet. It didn't help that my glasses were fogging and icing up too.

early morning start - the miracle of digital imaging makes it appear a lot lighter

off route on the way towards Ellingwood (Sam Pic)

time for more layers, and maybe helmets - it was cold

heading back to Blanca (or at least trying to figure it out) (Sam Pic)

Sam getting artsy with the rime ice (Sam Pic)

rime ice on the Blanca summit cross

from the Blanca summit, lots of ice, not a lot of visibility

I took a summit selfie - it makes it look a lot brighter than it was

Sam and Raquel wonder why we do this

Blanca summit group shot (Sam Pic)

time to head down (Sam Pic)

As we headed down we got out of the worst of the wind and were able to warm up. We even got out below the bottom of the cloud layer and the sun came out for a bit. Back at camp we had a fire to warm up and dry out before a chilly early night with a bit more rain. I was frustrated to not summit Ellingwood but decided to try to get it on the next day if we could.

Sam drying out and warming up in the smoke

9-15-15 We had another early morning start and headed back up towards Ellingwood. This time we had much better visibility and even some sun. The part of the route that was still in the shade was a little icy but it was much easier and more pleasant than the day before both in terms of temperature and conditions as well as route finding. We spent a bit of time on the summit in the sun watching clouds spiral off the top of Blanca. Then we headed back down towards camp.

a crystalline frozen lake on the way up

from a small lake with Blanca in the back

clouds spiraling over Blanca Peak

summit photo on Ellingwood - one of us needs their Sunski sunglasses

panorama from Ellingwood, Little Bear on far Rt, then Blanca, then Lindsey above Sam and Raquel, north is in the middleish

Raquel decided to skip Little Bear so Sam and I headed up without her. First we had a big talus slope up to the ridge and then a fairly easy traverse to the notorious hourglass couloir. This is supposed to be one of the most technical bits required for all the 14ers with particular danger if there is someone above you knocking rocks down. Fortunately nobody was above us. There were a few fixed ropes up some slabs but I was able to easily free climb up past them. If it was wet or icy they would have been very appreciated. The hardest climbing was solid rock with slabs and mostly good holds. Above that was a lot of looser talus and balanced rocks. I didn't think there was much chance of a long fall up higher but it would be very easy to knock a rock loose and have it funnel down onto the climbing below. As we approached the summit we got a message via the DeLorme satellite messenger that Pat (who we had visited in Pueblo) would soon fly by. Sweet. We rushed the last bit to the summit and started looking around. We heard the plane before we saw it - below the horizon to the NW. It flew up and past us before circling around and then heading off to the east. It was one of the cooler things to happen on a summit. Sadly he was not able to take a photo of us.

Sam scrambling up the hourglass

here comes the plane

Little Bear view along the ridge to Blanca, Ellingwood to its left, Lindsey peaks out just to its right

view southish from the summit of Little Bear - Blanca on the right, Ellingwood in the sun to its left, Lake Como in the middle

We carefully picked our way down to the hourglass trying not to dislodge any rocks. Luckily there wasn't anybody below us. Once past the hourglass we had pretty smooth sailing back to the long talus descent. We could see Raquel doing yoga far far below near the trail. We made better time on the descent and then packed up camp and had dinner by Lake Como before continuing down the "road". We watched the sunset on the hike back and finally made it to the vehicles around 8:30. There we packed up and drove around towards Mt Lindsey. We ended up camping partway up the road towards Lindsey. It sounded like at least some of the road had been repaired so we could drive a bit closer, but we would deal with that in the daylight after a good bit of sleep.

Sam and Raquel eating some tasty Good-2-Go food by Lake Como - Little Bear behind
Raquel is color coordinated with dinner

Summary of September 13 to 15, 3 14ers, about 26.5 miles and 11,150 feet of elevation gain. One shutdown (later rectified) one coldest a Puerto Rican had ever been in her life, some tears, some rain, a flyby, a smoky fire, and a long hike on a bad road.

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