LOCALadk Magazine

LOCALadk 24 ing shoes. We stood on a ledge at 13,500 feet, far above the lake, admiring views of neighboring peaks and, far- ther east across a valley, the Wet Mountains. Will started to worry that we might get caught in an afternoon thunderstorm, always a danger in summer in the Sangres. To speed things up, he led a rope-stretch- ing pitch that brought us to the base of a sustained fifth-class section. He then combined two pitches (roughly 5.6). At his urging, I climbed these as fast as I could, passing several old pitons, struggling to catch my breath in the thin air. Soon we came to the 5.7 pitch. Will started up a di- hedral and went out of sight. Then he stopped moving. "I'm at the crux. Watch me!" he yelled. It was his only moment of hesitation on the entire climb. The crux was an overhanging bulge. Below it on the left wall was a shallow round pocket where a stone had fallen out. I jammed a hand in the crack above the bulge and pulled myself high enough to stem my legs, one foot on the bulge, the other in the round pocket. Will later told me he used the pocket as a handhold. That's one of the joys of climbing: each person figures out his or her own way of overcoming difficulties. Still roped, we scrambled up easy terrain to the 14,197-foot summit for high fives and a few photos. As it turned out, the sky to the west was clear. We took in gorgeous views of rocky peaks in all directions and looked down on the San Luis Valley, a patchwork of green irrigation circles and dusty fields. The long slog back to camp required some awkward down-climbing and navigating rubble-filled gullies. It seemed as dangerous as the climb. Four hours later, we reached our tents. Exhausted, I skipped dinner and slid into my sleeping bag. A classic climb done, I dreamed happily. "I've had a lot of big days in the mountains all over the world in the last 20 years," Will emailed later. "Climbing Ellingwood Ledges on the Crestone Needle was a high- light due to the backcountry location, excellent climb- ing, a beautiful summit on a 14,000 -foot peak, the time shared in the mountains with a good friend and climb- ing partner, and the way everything came together. It's not all the time that everything lines up to allow suc- cess on an objective like this. We certainly won on this trip." Blanca Traverse Steve Thompson came to visit in September, driving west in a vintage Land Cruiser. An engineer, Steve grew up in New Jersey but spends much of his time pursuing adventure in Africa and Europe. I met him in the Adiron- dacks, where we have ice climbed together. Our first objective was the traverse along the 1.2- mile ridge between Little Bear Peak and Blanca Peak. It promised to be every bit as exciting as Ellingwood Ledges. "Sustained, exposed, brilliant scrambling between Little Bear and Blanca — one of Colorado's most aes- thetic ridges — makes this a Colorado classic," Derek A . Wolfe declares in his guidebook to the Sangre de Cris- tos. Blanca Peak rises 5,000 feet above the San Luis Val- ley. In the Land Cruiser, however, we were able to crawl several miles up a boulder-strewn jeep road, with the passenger gaping at sheer drop-offs mere feet away. Eventually, the road became too rough even for our in- trepid driver, and we hoofed the rest of the way to Lake Como below Little Bear. The next morning we scrambled up scree and talus to Little Bear's west ridge. From here, the easiest and most popular route goes up the southwest face to the summit, passing through the dangerous Hourglass, a funnel for rockfall. A climber had been struck by a boul- der and seriously injured in the Hourglass six weeks earlier. Steve and I avoided the death trap by staying on the west ridge, which is technically more difficult (with a 5.4 crux) but overall safer. We reached the 14,037-foot summit minutes before Above: Tr ying to ignore the thousand-foot drop, Phil squeezes past a corner on the way to Blanca Peak. Photo Credit: Steve Thompson Right: Steve reaches the summit of Crestone Needle. Photo Credit: Phil Brown

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