The Microwave Incident

• Date: 9 July, 2023
• Peaks: Little Bear Peak, Blanca Peak, Ellingwood Point
• Route: Little Bear NW Face, Little Bear-Blanca Traverse, Blanca-Ellingwood Traverse, Ellingwood South Couloir
• Mileage: 4.8mi from Lake Como, 8.2mi from Jaws 1
• Vertical: 3400ft from Lake Como, 4700ft from Jaws 1
• Time: 9.5hrs from Lake Como
• Partners: Cob, Max, Kyle

I was super glad Cob invited me along on this trip, as I'd been meaning to do the Little Bear-Blanca Traverse for a while now. I have had strong feelings about the Hourglass ever since first hearing about it, and I wanted to avoid climbing it at all costs. I'm sure it's not nearly as dangerous as I've heard, but from the few horror stories and accidents I've read into, it wasn't something I really wanted to even consider.

So I suggested we do a harder, just-as-loose alternative route on the Northwest Face! The benefit to this route would be, hopefully, that it would be traffic-free, and thus no dinner-plate-sized rocks would be hurled at our faces while we were climbing. Plus, getting to do more Class 5 climbing is always a benefit in my mind.

Cob and I started our drive down to the San Luis Valley from A-Basin, where we had just gotten off work. Max and Kyle carpooled from Boulder to meet us. Our timings ended up being a bit different, so Cob and I headed up the Lake Como Road as soon as we arrived. His Porsche Cayenne did amazingly well on the 4x4 portions of the road, and we made it all the way to Jaws 1 before deciding we didn't want to risk breaking the car! That road is seriously rough, I wouldn't consider driving it unless I were in an ATV really...

We hiked the remaining 1.7mi to our campsite at Lake Como, where Cob and I set up our tent and proceeded to go to bed. Max and Kyle arrived sometime around 23:00 if I remember correctly, but all that matters is that, when we woke up, we were all in the same spot. Our wake-up time was set for 4:30 to give us enough time for breakfast and water before we headed up for the day. We started actually hiking around 5:00.

We could see the "Black Hand" from the road, so when we felt like we were close enough we left the road and cut straight up towards it. The scree field was fairly loose, but manageable if we just kept out of each others' fall zones. Before long we were at the base of the climbing, and had to pick a spot to start. I had read a report that mentioned starting to climber's right of the "Black Hand," so we found a left-facing corner that looked to be 5.easy climbing and went for it. It turned out to be exactly that, so we continued. The route-finding was never very hard, in my opinion.

The only hiccup in our progress was when we reached a spot where Max was climbing right above Cob and I, where he told he us it was probably a good idea to spread out and keep out of the fall line. Not a second after he said this, he pulled off a microwave-sized block right into Cob's face! Luckily Cob acted quick and jumped out of the way moments before disaster (the infamous "microwave incident"). A little shaken up, but still confident, we kept on climbing. The first Class 5 portion (which turned out to be the crux) was over once we reached a bit of a ledge, where we traversed climber's left.

There was one more right-facing, Class 4 corner to climb before we reached the big drainage that leads up to the ridge. This was mostly Class 3 or Class 4 climbing, and as long as we were careful about our steps the majority of the rock stayed pretty much where it was. To exit the drainage there was a bit more easy Class 5, which brought us to the ride crest and the Class 4 headwall leading up to the summit of Little Bear. We summitted at 7:30.

We ate a snack, drank some water, and threw on some more sunscreen, then headed back down what we had just come up. In my opinion, the headwall downclimb was really not that bad, but that could be because we had just done much harder. The first tower, and with it the first difficulty, came fast. The exposure was terrific and terrifying, both at once. Luckily, the rock already seemed to be bomber, and it remained that way for the entire route.

Cob told us to keep going ahead so he could snap some photos, so we added some distance between us. Despite the numerous Class 5 difficulties, the gang seemed to have little problem with them. I certainly didn't think any of them were harder than 5.2, in fact probably none were more difficult than 5.0 if you asked me. The ridge is super straightforward for the most part. We had to dip left at Captain Bivwacko Tower (which should be pretty obvious to anyone trying the route for the first time, since it's the first time you have to leave the ridge proper), but otherwise kept true to the ridgeline.

Difficulties came and passed, with an exposed Class 5 move or two, until we eventually came to a huge gendarme that we clearly would not be climbing over. Initially, we dropped to the left to get around it, but found out quick that we would be cliffed out if we continued. We retraced our steps and went right around it instead, now finding cairns and trails again. This led up to another large gendarme, one which would be just some Class 3 to climb up directly. At the top of this false summit, we took our final snack break before completing the traverse and going up Blanca.

What remained was the catwalk, which lived up to its name for being airy and requiring careful steps. At this point the traverse was over and we could now scramble the rest of the way to the summit of Blanca.

The boys were feeling a bit tired at this point, understandably. I suggested that I might want to tack on Ellingwood Point, since we were already right there, and Kyle concurred. Reluctantly Max and Cob gave in to the FOMO and agreed to do just one more traverse. We tried as best as possible to stick to ridge proper, until we pretty much no longer could. There was one pretty hard section (definitely not Class 3) that we ended up doing, but otherwise it was a cake walk after all we'd been through. We summitted one last time and discussed our options. Kyle mentioned that he had heard there was a route down the southwest ridge of Ellingwood Point, and it seemed to go exactly where we were headed anyways, so we took it down.

We started down the ridge to find that it was less easy than we imagined. We were already this far down, though, so might as well commit (come on guys, make better decisions)! We came across the first couloir and decided, hey, this doesn't look so bad, so we went down it. Poor decision abound. We sucked it up, nearly got annihilated by a few flying rocks, and trudged down the scree on the side of the couloir. Overall I would not recommend this as a descent. We did eventually make it to the bottom, really beat down and ready to be back at the cars.

We hiked on back to camp, took a refreshing dip in Lake Como, packed up, and headed out. What a helluva day in the mountains!