Climbing 14ers Blanca Peak and Ellingwood Point in Colorado's Sangre de Cristo Mountains

The day after summiting Little Bear Peak (see the previous video), we summited Ellingwood Point and Blanca Peak, two 14,000-foot mountains in Colorado's Sangre de Cristo Wilderness near the San Luis Valley the following morning. After camping overnight at Lake Como, we started heading up the snow around 4 a.m. and made quick work to the base of the main couloir on Ellingwood.

We chose to climb Ellingwood first because it would get sun before Blanca's slopes would and that would give us more stable snow. The couloir was about 1,100 feet up and tops out at a false summit just a couple minutes away from the true summit.

After Ellingwood, we took the class 3 traverse over to Blanca--at least we intended to. We tried to stay ridge-direct until we got cliff'd out near the saddle and had to downclimb some class 4 to get us on-route and on snow again, which we stayed on until the summit.

It was a beautiful early June day with low winds and rapidly increasing temps once we were in the sun. We made it back to our campsite around noon.