Colorado has 58 mountains over 14, salve 000 feet. Within this grouping many peaks have ridges that connect them but only four are deemed worthy to be be called great.
On June 14th, 2013, I completed the last of these, the Little Bear – Blanca Traverse. In my opinion it is clearly the most difficult.
First I climbed Little Bear, 14,037′ via the rare West Ridge direct route with partners Tom and Barry. This was not the normal Hourglass route. I then continued solo across the Little Bear-Blanca Traverse to summit Blanca Peak, 14,345’. It was an extreme day with unbelievable exposure and fun rock climbing.
I had to take cover midway on the traverse when a lightning storm developed overhead. All in all, an incredible adventure in the Colorado Rockies.
See the complete report at this link
And a few pictures of the climb:
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- Little Bear – Blanca Traverse
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- Exposure on the Little Bear – Blanca Traverse
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- Little Bear – Blanca Traverse
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- Little Bear – Blanca Traverse
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- Lake Como with Little Bear
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- Alan Climbing Little Bear West Ridge
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- Barry and Tom Climbing Little Bear West Ridge
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- Little Bear West Ridge
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- Barry on the Little Bear West Ridge
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- Barry and Tom on the Little Bear West Ridge
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- Barry and Tom on the Little Bear West Ridge
Climb On!
Alan
Memories are Everything
awesome site alan , I check it most days , I could never do any of this stuff but I sure do find it interesting. one question about this latest post. Did you fish the lake that night u stayed there? 🙂 surely that woulda topped off a great day in my opinion 🙂
Thanks Chris, we didn’t try to fish in Lake Como but I assume there are some nice trout there!
Awesome, Alan! You rock! Well done on the heartiest of 14er traverses! And, taking the West Ridge to LB to boot! Loved the video as well. Hope you are doing great! Looks like it.
Best,
Brandon
Thanks Brandon. This combo climb was a lot of fun!
I thought Long’s Peak would have been the toughest.
There are many Colorado 14ers more difficult than Longs but of course it all depends on the route and time of year. Little Bear and Capital are generally regarded as two of the most difficult via the normal routes. Longs has comparably difficult routes.