Ellingwood
Point

Ellingwood Point honors Albert Ellingwood, a Rhodes Scholar and Colorado College political science professor who introduced roped, technical rock climbing to Colorado in the 1910s and 1920s. His first ascents included Lizard Head, the Ellingwood Ridge on La Plata Peak, and neighboring Crestone Needle. The U.S. Board on Geographic Names made the current name official in 1972; earlier maps had labeled it Ellingwood Peak. No written record survives of who first stood on the point's own summit.

With only about 374 feet of prominence above the saddle to Blanca Peak, Ellingwood Point just clears the 300-foot cutoff Colorado climbers use to separate a true summit from a shoulder of its neighbor — a margin that has kept its status on fourteener lists mildly contested. Climbers usually tag it in the same outing as Blanca, breaking off from the Lake Como basin to climb a Class 2 gully up its south face before returning to finish the taller peak.