Little Bear Peak

The best part of climbing Blanca and Ellingwood in 2016 was the knowledge that I would never have to walk that Lake Como road for the rest of my life. It’s rocky, it’s long, it’s unpleasant. But somehow, there I was again, walking up that rock-strewn abomination of a road. How did this happen?

In the summer of 2017 after lamely dragging myself up and barely making it down a couple of Fourteeners I made two decisions:

• get better at climbing Fourteeners
• do them all

Now climbing them all meant doing the ones with class 4 climbs. I had said that I wouldn’t do that, that class 3 was challenging enough and I had no need to take the risks of class 4. But power of a completed checklist compells me, so I had to figure out how to do it as safely as I could.

To do all the Fourteeners safely, you need three main things:

• skills
• friends
• good conditions for your climb

To work on my scrambling skills I signed up for the Alpine Scrambling Class at Colorado Mountain Club. I can’t recommend this class enough. In it I worked on skills, acclimatized to exposure, and found friends who had the same stupid mountain goals as I did.

I’d climbed Sunlight Peak earlier in the season, which is rated class 4. But the route was class 4 only by the most minimum criteria — literally only one move on the entire route. Little Bear has what some folks consider as the hardest free-climb of all the Fourteeners, a smooth rock crux called The Hourglass. And the name actually refers to the other difficult element: the wide, loose rock-filled gully above narrows at the crux so any falling rock gets funneled to right where you are climbing a class 4. Good times. Climbers have died on this route, so it’s one to approach with the highest respect.

So. There I was on that abomination of a road with Mike heading the Lake Como. Marina met us at the lake. She’d arrived the day before and climbed Blanca and Ellingwood the day we were coming in. Lake Como is a vision of a mountain lake — Little Bear reflecting in its calm waters. The bear issues of our previous visit had been resolved, so the evening & night passed unevenfully.

For a scramble, I want sunlight on the rock — headlamps won’t do. I’ll hike all night in the dark, but for me climbing requires a larger context that only the sun can give. We were up and out of camp so we’d hit the top of the gully at first light. The gully was straghtforward and indeed the sun was rising once we were done with it.

From the top of the gully we followed the route on the side of the slope until we arrived at the base of The Hourglass. The skills? Check. The friends? Check. And now that we were there we could see the conditions for the climb. Were they good? Check. Just a small trickle of water ran down the middle.

The Hourglass name maybe has another meaning, because we certainly spent a fair amout of time waiting. We waited for climbers above to either decend or get higher. Once relatively clear, we began. The rock was water- & ice-polished, with only gentle curves or shallow indentations in the surface for hand & foot holds.

There were ropes, but from the bottom you just don’t know what condition they are in. Were the set this year? Last? Are they rubbing on a sharp edge higher up? Did marmots crew a bit to get some of the salt? So all of us just let the ropes lie. Sometimes they were just in the way.

But we took our time, moved with deliberation, and soon we were above it. Someone really needs to take a broom to the gully above The Hourglass. There’s just rocks everywhere, sitting precariously on ledges just waiting for your boot to ever so slightly brush against it before it takes off. Even a cat would manage to knock down a couple. The rockfall was no joke. If there’s someone above you, the rock will come down – just hope that its small and its ricochets take it away from you on its was down. The last section was steep with plentiful places for hands & feet.

We made the summit on schedule. The skies were clear and the views were great. But after we got our photos, we didn’t relax & hang. There was the work of getting down before we could afford any celebration.

Going down you see how far you can fall. That’s not an issue for the way up unless you turn and look. Descending, it’s always a quick glance away. For me it’s all about the focus. I concentrate on the task at hand — finding foot- and hand-holds and lowering myself. When I do look at what is below — pretty frequently — I make sure I’m stopped in a secure position. The after I get my heebie-jeebies I reset, refocus, and continue.

We were the last group off the summit, so we luckily had no one above us to kick rock. Once we neared The Hourglass we spent more time waiting — this time for folks below us to clear. Once they were out, we started. Moving slowly and with as many points of contact with the rock as you can manage we each took our separate lines and descended.

Then it’s over. You get off of the polished part, you move to the right to be clear of any rockfall, and now’s the time to celebrate.

We still had a fair bit of mountain left — including that steep gully. But that paled in comparison of what we’d finished.

I’ve since climbed all the class 4 Fourteeners and I can say with confidence that The Hourglass was the most challenging pitch of them all. It’s stingy with holds and generous with consequence. I could not have climbed Little Bear without Mike & Marina. To have others whose judgement you trust is invaluable.

As I walked back down the rocky, long, & unpleasant Lake Como road after breaking camp, I had the satisfaction of knowing the I’d never have to walk it again for the rest of my life.

My fingers are still crossed.

Little Bear from Lake Como

• When: 16 Aug 2019
• Distance: 3.1 mi RT
• Total Elevation: 2,437′
• Total Time: 6:30 hrs
• Colo 14er Rank: #44
• Difficulty: class 4