14042 – Wild Wanderer

Blanca Peak – 14,345 and Ellingwood Point – 14,042

I’d planned on taking an off day today instead of hiking. I’ve hiked 5 fourteeners in the past 6 days, and I’d thought I’d accomplished a lot this week. I wanted to take my kids to see the fall colors, but when I asked them all about their schedules two of my kids had to work and one was going to a slumber party.

So suddenly, at 7pm, I had the opportunity to hike the next day. This was wonderful! This was terrible!

I have the goal of hiking all 58 of Colorado’s 14ers, and when I set a goal I tend to aggressively meet that goal. It’s an added bonus I love hiking so it’s not
much of a challenge to get me to hike a peak. But today I was supposed to rest!
I knew from my hike yesterday and listening to the forecast on the way
home most of the high country was getting snow this weekend. I’d already done a snow hike this week and that didn’t sound like a fun repeat. But
I had an idea: I looked at the weather for Blanca and Ellingwood, and it was predicted to be 44 degrees, sunny, with 20mph winds all day! Great weather! I don’t think I’ve had a forecast yet this summer that was “sunny” all day.

I quickly put together a pro-con list for hiking (or not) in the morning:

Con:

·I’ve only had 15 hours of sleep total this week
(due to working nights and hiking days)

·I hate hiking on Saturdays. There are just too many people!

·I still haven’t found a “hiking buddy”

·Gas is expensive

·I’ve hiked 5 peaks in the past 6 days and should
let my body rest

Pro:

·I get to hike

·The weather was predicted to be great (for fall)

·I’m running out of good weather hiking days for the year (winter is coming)

·Hiking these two peaks would put me at 29 total 14ers (halfway to 58!)

·I just got new off road tires on my truck, and I’d get to try them out on Lake Como Road

·Although I’ve done a lot of hiking lately, I’m not physically sore

Darn it, I’m going hiking!

I woke up at 2am and made it to the trailhead by 5am. (That’s making really great time driving). No problems this time with directions/etc. I only took my truck about 3 miles up the road because that was what was suggested, but after hiking in a ways it was obvious my truck could have made it at least 4 miles, if not 5 up the road. The only problem I’d have would be finding a parking spot big enough for my Tundra that far up. There are a few parking spots at some of the switchbacks, but they were all full, and there wasn’t a place to turn around if needed.

Here’s what the road looked like driving in

When you see this sign, it’s a good place to park. Most good clearance 4WD’s can make it further, but there’s no space to turn around once your vehicle can’t make it anymore.

If you’re wondering if your vehicle can make it up this road, then it can’t. Here are some pictures of the Lake Como road. Yes, it’s insane.

This road continued until past Lake Como, and just gets worse as it goes on. The road itself is intense for vehicles, but not so bad for hikers. Not fun, but not bad/tough. Yes, it’s a long hike in, but I’d compare it to the Pikes Peak trail to Barr Camp. It wasn’t as bad as I’d been told it would be.

I made it to Lake Como at 7:20am (about 2 hours of hiking), and was surprised to find most people still sleeping and a few people fishing around the lake. I didn’t know Lake Como had fish?

This is the type of vehicle that can make it up Lake Como Road.

There were a bunch of signs indicating bear activity, but bear activity wasn’t obvious (no prints or damage). I did like seeing all the bear bags hanging
from trees though!

The trail continued around the lake and around many more small lakes before coming to a small basin.

The trail was well maintained with plenty of cairns.

Here you can see Ellingwood (left) and Blanca (right).

The rest of the trail was easy to follow, but not very pretty. It was gray and rocky. Very, very rocky. But at least there were a lot of cairns marking the way.

I talked to several hikers along the way, asking if they knew where the cutoff to Ellingwood was exactly? Most of the directions I found indicated a general area, but said it was difficult to find. No one seemed to know for sure, but they were
all interested in completing both Blanca and Ellingwood today as well. Everyone had an opinion on the cutoff though: Some thought the trail was above the snow left on the mountain, some thought under, some thought further up the ridge.

The weather was just as predicted. Kind of. It was beautiful. Everywhere
except for Blanca Peak. I felt as if she was staring at me as I was hiking the basin.

Blanca Peak was covered in a thin layer of snow, ice, and a very small cloud. As I approached it got colder and the wind got stronger. Once I reached the ridge the weather turned nasty. The cloud that was covering Blanca’s peak was full of ice. As I climbed the ridge I was slipping all over the place and had to use both hands to steady myself. Obviously I put my camera away and trudged on.

I couldn’t see where I was going because the cloud covering Blanca was so thick. The exposure was such one false slip and I’d slide off the peak, so it was slow going as I made sure I was steady before making my next move.

The last push seemed to go on forever, until I was finally at the summit! I was frozen and couldn’t talk, but I’d made it!

What’s “funny” is the weather was perfect in every direction, except for directly over the peak. Heavy clouds were forming about 20 yards from Blanca’s peak, and the 20mph wind was rushing it over the peak. Then the cloud disappeared once it had gone over Blanca. It was maddening! The only bad weather in sight was directly above me!

I had to get back down from the peak quickly, as I was becoming a popsicle. Even the cairns were full of ice!

As I descended I kept telling myself Ellingwood was in the sun, so that hike would be warm. But as I descended Blanca the clouds descended as well, and started to envelop Ellingwood too. Ugh!

Descending Blanca was beautiful (and clear)

I really wanted to hike Ellingwood, but I was very, very cold, and it didn’t look warm on Ellingwood. I was seriously worried I’d need to come back at a later date to climb Ellingwood. This was NOT something I’d wanted to do, but was prepared to do if necessary. I just hoped it wouldn’t be necessary.

Added to that was the fact I didn’t really know where the cutoff was for Ellingwood. I knew where the trail was on the ridge, but with all the ice it didn’t look safe to take that route. I’d thought the cutoff for Ellingwood was at a cairn I’d seen earlier with a pink ribbon around it. Call me crazy, but this seemed like a sign. When I made it back to this cairn after hiking Blanca I brought out my GPS, and guess what? The cutoff was right where I was, at the pink cairn.

Once I found the trail it was really easy to follow. There were tons of cairns leading up the side of the mountain and to the left. The rock was loose but I never felt like I was going to slip or fall. And the sun came out! Woohoo!
I felt like the hike up Blanca was more difficult than the hike up Ellingwood (due to the wind and ice, I’m sure it would have been cheery on a warmer day).

The only down side was the false summit, but it was really close to the actual summit, so it was ok.

There were 3 or 4 people on the summit already, and one offered to take my picture. I pointed out Mt. Lindsey in the background. It was 11:15am.

And then I was off on my way back down. I knew I had a long hike
ahead of me, and I wanted to get started.

The hike down was long but uneventful. I wasn’t very tired, which surprised me, especially after my other hikes this week. The trail was well maintained,
which made it easy to follow

I’m pretty sure this is the cutoff for Little Bear

I saw several modified jeeps (etc.) headed up Lake Como Road. I saw them in groups of 3-4, and passed no less than 4 groups. That’s a lot of vehicles headed to the lake! I just hoped no one was trying to drive back down…

I made it to my truck at 3pm, making this a 15 mile hike with 5800’ of elevation gain in 10 hours.

Oh, and you know what ROCKS about this hike? I’ve now summited 29 unique 14ers: I’m halfway to 58!

Mt. Lindsey – 14,042 (and Northwest Lindsey 14,020)

I arrived late at the trailhead for 2 reasons:

1: When I got up I
needed to fold some laundry, start a new load, and clean up from the kids’ late
night baking session (the dishwasher was full and needed to be unloaded and
then loaded again).

2: The I25 was closed
for 2 exits and the detour took forever because of all the semis trying to
navigate the downtown streets.

So even though I got up at 2am I made it to the Huerfano /
Lily Lake Trailhead at 6:15am. Here are
some pics of the easy 4WD road to the trailhead.

There were two other cars in the parking lot (which could
probably hold 10 in the immediate area, but there was a lot of room on the road
itself as well). I was on the trail by
6:30pm. It was just beginning to get
light outside.

The beginning of this hike was pretty easy. It followed a creek and a boulder field.

I could tell the views on the way back were going to be
amazing!

I followed a waterfall up a hill and saw two hikers at the
mine. (Side note, I had an epiphany
here: Mine probably came from the word “mine”. Think about it). Anyway, they were on the other side of the
stream and couldn’t hear me, so I waved and continued on.

Here’s my first view of Mt. Lindsey. It’s the peak to the center right.

I crossed this basin and ascended the hillside. At the top I took a shadow selfie, because
that’s what I do.

Here I reached a saddle, and decided to leave my hiking pole
at a cairn, as this was a class 3 hike/climb and it wouldn’t help any when I
needed two hands. I took a picture of
both sides of Mt. Lindsey and put my camera away.

It was here I met a man who stopped me: “Hey, do you blog?”

Me: “Yes”

Man: “Aren’t you
WildWanderer? I’ve seen all your stuff
on the 14ers site. You’re famous! You’ve been rocking out the peaks this
summer!”

I thanked him, argued a bit about the “famous” part, and was
on my way.

We met up again while I was putting on my helmet. I was trying to figure out my route. I didn’t want to hold my map as I was
climbing, so I was studying the picture I had and what I could see in front of
me. I didn’t want to take the gully
(blue line) because I’m not a fan of gullies.
I wanted to take the pink line, as that’s an easy class 3.

I put on my helmet, put away my map, and started my way
up. I’d told myself to just hug the left
side of the ridge and I’d be fine. The
sunlight was blinding, shining directly in my eyes. It was difficult to see any sort of
trail. It took some maneuvering, but I felt
I was doing pretty well. Until I came to
the crux. That’s where the route
diverges into 3 different parts about halfway up the ridge. However, I couldn’t tell that was where I was
at. Looking at a picture/map is totally
different from when you’re actually climbing.
You can’t see much in front of you or behind you while climbing, so you
have to go by memory. I knew I was good
as long as I stayed to the left of the ridge, so I looked up and started
climbing. The easiest route looked to be
the pitch, so that’s where I went. It
wasn’t too hard until I was almost all the way up. This is what it looked like:

I kept thinking to myself as I was climbing: “This is MUCH
harder than Longs Peak. Aren’t they both
supposed to be class 3’s?” My research
had told me Longs was harder than Lindsey.
I felt what I was doing was within my abilities, but why was this so
difficult? And why did this feel so much more difficult than Longs?

By this time the man who’d talked with me before had caught
up with me again. I was doing the route
finding and he was following me. Since I
had an extra pair of eyes I called back to him “Hey, from where you’re standing
does it look like this line goes to the top?”

He said it did, and I was almost there. Great! Except I didn’t fit though the path I
needed to take, and going back down wasn’t an option I wanted to take. I’m not a big girl (5’4”, 105lbs), but in
order to make this move I’d need to remove my backpack and lift myself/crawl sideways
and up through a tight space. Once
again, I felt secure I could do this (without my backpack). I discussed this with the man below me, and
we decided to help each other out: I
took off my backpack, climbed up, and he handed it up to me, then took off his
and handed me his backpack. This worked
great, and we both made it! The entire
time I kept thinking to myself how I did NOT want to go down this way! I couldn’t see what was below me, and even
knowing there was a ledge just beyond my sight I knew it’d be suicide. I needed to find a safer route down.

We separated once again and I was off to find the
summit. This part of the hike was
slippery with a lot of loose rock. When
I finally gained the ridge to what I hoped was Mt. Lindsey I realized I was at
Northwest Lindsey (14,020). Luckily I
could see Mt. Lindsey in the distance.

I thought briefly about taking a picture of me summiting
here, but didn’t deem it as too important, so I pressed on.

The rest of the hike was easy. I followed the small saddle towards Mt.
Lindsey, and then looked back at Northwest Lindsey.

This part of the hike was only about 200 yards, and soon I
summited! I was the first to summit
today!

I got out my map and looked at my options for the way
down. That’s when I realized I’d hiked a
class 4! Check this out: Here’s a picture of what I’d intended to
climb (the pink route)

And what I actually climbed (the red line).

Now everything made sense!
When the man I’d climbed with reached the summit I told him about our
achievement and we fist-bumped. Then
promptly discussed taking the gully back down.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to do this because I didn’t know where it started
back down. I passed several gullies and
wanted to be sure I was hiking the correct one on my way down. My intent was to hike back the way I’d came,
but to try to find the class 3 route down.
If I couldn’t, I’d load my GPS with different directions and go looking
for the correct gully.

I was off, and on my way back decided to indeed take a
picture at Northwest Lindsey, just because I don’t’ ever want to climb this
mountain again and I wanted proof I’d been here. That class 4 part was really the climb up
Northwest Lindsey, so I felt I’d earned a picture.

Here’s the way back to Northwest Lindsey

And my summit selfie

As I started down I noticed the couple I’d passed at the
mine coming up what I presumed was the gully.
We talked about their route up, and they gave me directions back down
the gully. This seemed like a good
option. All I needed to do was aim for
the red dirt in the middle right of this picture, and then the route down would
be visible.

So that’s what I did.
And this is what that route looked like:

It wasn’t very much fun.
I’m not sure which was worse, the ridge up or the gully down. In fact, as I met hikers trying to make the
decision which route to take I wasn’t sure what to tell them. They were both pretty crummy. I was just glad I didn’t need to do either of
them ever again.

As I reached the saddle I turned and looked back at the
mountain. Can you see the class 4 pitch?

Here it is…

I felt like a badass as I continued hiking back down.

I talked to a bunch of hikers on the way down, but didn’t
see anyone after I reached the saddle.
Except for a marmot in all his glory.

The trail went through a pine forest, which was lovely
except the evergreens are losing their needles for some reason. The ground was littered with green pine
needles, which are extremely slippery.

The trees are just starting to change colors here.

Oh, and I found a patch of wild strawberries by the
stream! I love hiking this time of year
because of things like this!

So, here are my final stats:

Started hike at 6:30am

Summited around 9:15am (I looked but forgot the time…)

Made it back to my Truck at 12pm

Total hike time: 5 hours 30 minutes

Total Mileage: 8.25 miles

Total Elevation Gain: 3500’ (it felt like way more)

Here’s a 360 degree view of the summit

The Mt Lindsey Summit Sticker can be bought here