Winter Blanca

With snowflake season fast approaching, I thought I'd finish up a few trip reports for climbs I did last winter. I'll start with Blanca Peak from February.

Day: February 16th, 2020

Trailhead: Como Rd (8800 feet)

Peak: Blanca Peak

Route: Northwest Ridge (standard)

Mileage/Elevation gain: 13.96 miles and 5682 feet of gain

The road to Como Lake:

We parked at 8800 feet and surprisingly Como Rd was dry to that point. It was cold, dark and too early when we started up the road. The frosty air was the perfect remedy for my lack of sleep though, and it perked me right up. The 5-hour energy helped as well. The road remained mostly dry for the first mile or so and slowly transitioned to all snow. We dredged through the snow as long as possible before finally taking a break and putting our snowshoes on (I don't know why I always prolong the inevitable). We then trenched to the lake arriving at first light.

Como Lake to base of Blanca:

Once at the lake the snow depth increased and our speed decreased. We left the standard trail here, and walked along the right edge of the frozen lake to take advantage of it's hard packed surface. On the other side, we merged back with the standard route which we more or less followed the rest of the way.

We crossed over frozen lakes when ever possible for the firmer snow as we continued into the upper basin. After passing Crater Lake on our right, and just before the base of Blanca, there was a significant avy slope coming off Ellingwood. We knew the avy danger was low that day (green on the CAIC scale), but still, we crossed under it gingerly one at a time. From there we crossed through a couple rock bands and were at the base of Blanca.

The Climb up Blanca Peak:

From the base of Blanca we could see that crampons would be needed, so we put them on and stashed our snowshoes. We then climbed a steep snowfield to reach the ledges section. An ice axe was nice to have here for support. Once at the ledges we kept our crampons on to the summit. The extra traction was nice for the snow and ice which was continuous the rest of the way.

From the ledges we beelined to the cairn marking the Northwest Ridge. The standard trail was unidentifiable so we just worked our way through a mix of talus, scree and snow bands until reaching the cairn.

The winds hit us almost immediately upon reaching the ridge. To this point the wind had been almost nonexistent and we thought we lucked out. I've climbed very few winter peaks without significant wind at some point. It was definitely howling (I won't guess at the speed) and almost kept us from summiting as we progressed up the ridge. As you can see from the picture below, the ridge was a mix of talus and deep snow. For the most part the snow was supportive, so we used it whenever possible to avoid the talus as we battled the winds. Sometimes we'd punch through the snow though so we had to be careful.

Despite the winds we eventually made the summit. Amazingly, these winds were very calm on the summit, and we enjoyed the most beautiful winter views.

We enjoyed a longer than normal stay for a winter 14er summit. None of us were looking forward to going down that windy ridge. We had hoped to hit Ellingwood too, but this summit took longer than planned (they always seem to in the winter) and we didn't want to spend too much time walking out in the dark. A winter Ellingwood would have to wait. We eventually did head down and the descent was uneventful. It was another good day in the mountains.