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Originally planning to climb Ellingwood Ridge as a warm-up for Mt. Whitney,
I set out on the drive at 2:00 am from Denver. A lot of yard work the previous
day and very little sleep had taken its toll once I arrived at the trailhead.
I decided to nap for an hour before getting started. I really didn't want to
take the Northwest ridge route again as I did in April when forced to turn
back because of avalanches. I found the turnoff for the faint trail to
La Plata Basin, and followed it until its end, but decided to turn back as
I was so tired, and figured I should take the standard route rather than
nothing at all. It was a lot easier to hike up a trail rather than route
finding through 3 feet of snow. I reached the flat basin in a little over
an hour. Sayers Benchmark (13,738') is the peak in the photo on the
right as seen from the basin.
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The trail up the ridge is straightforward and winds up to some switchbacks,
eventually leading up a gully. The top of this gully is the point I reached
back in April, taking almost 3 hours then. I had reached it this time around
in 1.5 hours, demonstrating the difficulty of making good time in snow. After
following the trail west to a flat area, La Plata's Northwest ridge
comes into view (photo on left). I stopped for a few minutes to get a rest in,
and continued up the trail. An old trail to the right had been closed off and
a new trail with stair step rocks had recently been constructed. Reaching the
ridge, I could see that a good deal of hiking was left, and I was feeling
grateful that I wasn't on Ellingwood Ridge, now visible to the east.
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The trail flattened out for a short time on the approach up the ridge. A trail
winds around the North side of the ridge, which I followed. It doesn't really
matter to follow the trail, as the talus isn't very steep, and invariably
there are two separate trails on any given 100-foot wide section. On the right
is a view of the ridge to the summit. There were some steep dirt sections that
were "loose" - I'm not even sure if this makes sense to classify dirt this way.
I would have been better off following the talus slope. Eventually, I made
my way up to the end of the ridge to a flat area with a few false summits.
Feeling as poor as I did and wasting time going to La Plata Basin and back,
I managed to pass everyone on the way up.
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Arriving at the summit after three hours, the views of the Sawatch Range and
Elks are incredible. The views from Mt. Yale are reputed to be the best in the
Sawatch, but I have to put in my vote for this one. Again there was no register
, and I'm beginning to wonder who is taking them all since they aren't being
replaced. On the descent, there were two parties of over ten people on the
ridge, who had no intention of yielding on the trail. I find this extremely
annoying. I guess I'll have to start climbing more thirteeners to avoid the
crowds. Someday I'll have to come back to climb Ellingwood Ridge, as I really
wish I had been feeling well enough to climb something rugged.
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