Our second 14er attempt was to climb Blanca Peak and Ellingwood Point. These two are just next to each other and therefore easy to do in one day. The problem here is that it is a very long hike to get to the peaks at all. There is a 4×4 road but unfortunately the hardest in Colorado and should only be attempted with heavily modified vehicles. We were able to get up to about 8800 feet with our FJ and therefore having another 5500 feet to climb and a 24 km round trip hike.
Since there are thunderstorms in the afternoon we had to start before 4 am to be sure to make it off the peaks before the clouds come in.
One of the lakes we passed as the sun is slowly rising.
At 9 am we were at the first peak. I was exhausted and was seriously thinking about skipping Ellingwood. But we had met a guy on the way up and we could see how he quite quickly made it over to Ellingwood. The sky was still blue and after some sandwiches and snacks I was happy again. It was not as bad as it looked to hike the ridge over to Ellingwood where we stayed for a little while. We saw some clouds building up and since we knew we had a long way back to the car it was time to leave. At 11 am we left the peak and made it back to the car just after 2 pm just before it started to rain. Good timing!
View from Blanca Peak and the ridge we came up.
Enjoying Ellingwood Point.