Blanca Peak ( Navajo: ) is the fourth highest summit of the

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico ...

of North America and the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the wes ...

. The

ultra-prominent An ultra-prominent peak, or Ultra for short, is a mountain summit with a topographic prominence of or more; it is also called a P1500. The prominence of a peak is the minimum height of climb to the summit on any route from a higher peak, or fr ...

peak is the highest summit of the Sierra Blanca Massif, the

Sangre de Cristo Range , country= United States , subdivision1= Colorado , subdivision2_type= Counties , subdivision2= , parent= Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Rocky Mountains , borders_on= , geology= , age= , orogeny= Fault-block mountains , area_mi2= ...

, and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The fourteener is located north by east ( bearing 9°) of the Town of Blanca, on the drainage divide separating

Rio Grande National Forest Rio Grande National Forest is a 1.86 million-acre (7,530 km²) U.S. National Forest located in southwestern Colorado. The forest encompasses the San Luis Valley, which is the world's largest agricultural alpine valley, as well as one of the ...

and

Alamosa County Alamosa County is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 16,376. The county seat is Alamosa. The county name is the Spanish language word for a " grove of cottonwood trees." History Alamosa ...

from the Sangre de Cristo Land Grant and

Costilla County Costilla County (Spanish for "rib") is a county located in the U.S. state of Colorado. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,499. The county seat is San Luis, the oldest continuously occupied town in Colorado. History On July 8, 1694, ...

. The summit is the highest point of both counties and the entire

drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...

of the Rio Grande. Below the steep North Face of Blanca Peak two live Glaciers once developed, until extinction sometime after 1903. North & South Blanca Glaciers were located at 37° 35N.,longitude 105° 28W. Blanca Peak is higher than any point in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

east of its

longitude Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east– west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek lette ...

.The elevation of Blanca Peak includes an adjustment of +1.754 m (+5.75 ft) from NGVD 29 to NAVD 88. The Blanca Peak Tripoint of

Alamosa Alamosa is a home rule municipality and the county seat of Alamosa County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 9,806 at the 2020 United States Census. The city is the commercial center of the San Luis Valley in south-central Colora ...

, Costilla, and Huerfano counties is located on the same drainage divide approximately northeast by north ( bearing 30°) of the Blanca Peak summit at the boundary of the

San Isabel National Forest San Isabel National Forest is located in central Colorado. The forest contains 19 of the state's 53 fourteeners, peaks over high, including Mount Elbert, the highest point in Colorado. It is one of eleven national forests in the state of Color ...

. The Blanca Peak Tripoint is the highest point in Huerfano County.

Geography

Blanca Peak is located at the southern end of the

, a subrange of the more extensive Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and is the highest peak in both ranges. It lies approximately

east-northeast The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...

of the town of

. Approximately to the north-northwest is

Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve is an American national park that conserves an area of large sand dunes up to tall on the eastern edge of the San Luis Valley, and an adjacent national preserve in the Sangre de Cristo Range, in sou ...

. Blanca Peak is notable not only for its absolute height, but also for its great local relief and dominant position at the end of the range, rising high above the San Luis Valley to the west. For example, it rises nearly over the edge of the San Luis Valley in only .Blanca Peak on TopoQuest
/ref> Blanca is also the third most topographically prominent peak in Colorado; it is separated from the higher peaks in the

Sawatch Range The Sawatch Range or Saguache RangeThe place name "Saguache” is pronounced “Sawatch” . This name derives from the Ute language noun "''sawup''" meaning "sand dunes" and is spelled using the Spanish language version of this name "Saguac ...

by relatively low Poncha Pass at . Blanca Peak heads up three major creeks. Holbrook Creek is on the west, flowing from a basin including Crater Lake, Blue Lakes, and Como Lake. An extremely challenging

four wheel drive Four-wheel drive, also called 4×4 ("four by four") or 4WD, refers to a two-axled vehicle drivetrain capable of providing torque to all of its wheels simultaneously. It may be full-time or on-demand, and is typically linked via a transfer cas ...

road accesses Como Lake , and provides the most common access to Blanca Peak. Most vehicles stop at an elevation of between and on this road. The Como Lake Road is a designated Alamosa County Road and runs to the edge of the

Sangre de Cristo Wilderness The Sangre de Cristo Wilderness is a long and narrow wilderness area covering of the Sangre de Cristo Range centered about Saguache and Custer counties, Colorado. Smaller areas are located in Fremont, Alamosa, and Huerfano counties. The wild ...

just short of Blue Lakes. The Como Lake Road is rated as the most challenging 4WD road in Colorado. The Huerfano River flows from the north side of Blanca Peak. A road, starting out as a two-wheel drive road, then becoming a four-wheel drive road (less challenging than the Como Lake Road), provides access to the

technical climbing Rock climbing is a sport in which participants climb up, across, or down natural rock formations. The goal is to reach the summit of a formation or the endpoint of a usually pre-defined route without falling. Rock climbing is a physically an ...

on the North Face of Blanca Peak. Blanca Creek drains Blanca Basin under the south slopes of the peak, and Little Ute Creek descends from the Winchell Lakes on the southeast side. However these are not used to access the peak due to private property. Three other fourteeners are nearby:

Mount Lindsey Mount Lindsey is a high mountain summit on the Sierra Blanca Massif in the Sangre de Cristo Range of the Rocky Mountains of North America. The fourteener is located in the Sangre de Cristo Land Grant, north ( bearing 358°) of the communi ...

to the east, Ellingwood Point to the north and Little Bear Peak to the southwest. Ellingwood Point is connected to Blanca by a short, high ridge, and is often climbed in conjunction with Blanca. Little Bear also has a high connecting ridge to Blanca, but it is a

technical Technical may refer to: * Technical (vehicle), an improvised fighting vehicle * Technical analysis, a discipline for forecasting the future direction of prices through the study of past market data * Technical drawing, showing how something is co ...

traverse, only recommended for highly experienced parties.Louis W. Dawson II, ''Dawson's Guide to Colorado's Fourteeners, Volume 2'', Blue Clover Press, 1996, Smith Reservoir

Geology

The granite that makes up the Blanca massif is pre-Cambrian in age, dated at approximately 1.8 billion years old. The major part of the

Wet Mountains The Wet Mountains are a small mountain range in southern Colorado, named for the amount of snow they receive in the winter as compared to the dried Great Plains to the east. They are a sub-range of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, in the southern R ...

to the east and the

Front Range The Front Range is a mountain range of the Southern Rocky Mountains of North America located in the central portion of the U.S. State of Colorado, and southeastern portion of the U.S. State of Wyoming. It is the first mountain range encountered ...

to the northeast are also pre-Cambrian, also about 1.8 billion years old. In contrast, the

to the north and the

Culebra Range ) , country= United States , subdivision1_type= States , subdivision1= , parent= Rocky Mountains , geology= , orogeny= , area_mi2= 17193 , range_coordinates= , length_mi= 242 , length_orientation= north-south , width_mi= 120 , w ...

to the south are

Permian The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.9 Mya. It is the last ...

rock between 250 and 300 million years old.

History

Blanca Peak is known to the Navajo people as the Sacred Mountain of the East: 'Robert S. McPherson, ''Sacred Land, Sacred View: Navajo perceptions of the Four Corners Region'',

Brigham Young University Brigham Young University (BYU, sometimes referred to colloquially as The Y) is a private research university in Provo, Utah. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-d ...

, . (or ''Tsisnaasjiní''Lapahie.com
), the Dawn or White Shell Mountain. The mountain is considered to be the eastern boundary of the Dinetah, the traditional Navajo homeland. It is associated with the color white, and is said to be covered in daylight and dawn and fastened to the ground with lightning. It is gendered male. Summitpost notes that "the first recorded ascent of Blanca by the

Wheeler Survey The Wheeler Survey, carried out in 1872-1879, was one of the "Four Great Surveys" conducted by the US government after the Civil War primarily to document the geology and natural resources of the American West. Supervised by First Lieutenant (lat ...

was recorded on August 14, 1874, but to their surprise they found evidence of a stone structure possibly built by Ute Indians or wandering

Spaniards Spaniards, or Spanish people, are a Romance ethnic group native to Spain. Within Spain, there are a number of national and regional ethnic identities that reflect the country's complex history, including a number of different languages, both in ...

Historical names

*Blanca Peak *Mount Blanca *Sierra Blanca Peak *Sierra Blanca *Sisnaajiní

References

External links