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North Maroon Peak , Maroon Peak

Northeast Ridge of North Maroon, connecting ridge to South Maroon Peak

Ken, Dan, Ryan, and I climbed Pyramid the week before this one.  Shortly after that success, Ken suggested that we attempt to traverse the Maroon Bells.  I’d really been wanting to do it and I was surprised that he’d suggested it since he climbed both of the Maroon Bells by their standard route the previous summer.  So, naturally, I responded enthusiastically.  We ended up driving to Aspen on Saturday afternoon under sunny and warm conditions – completely different from the week before.  As usual for Saturdays, the parking lot was jammed so we had to park on the side of the road.  We had found a good camping spot back about 100 yards off the parking lot in May that afforded us good hiding and, because of the weather, we left the tent in the car and decided to sleep out under the stars.  We got up at around 3:15 and were hiking through the darkness at 3:45.  As we walked through the daytime parking lot, we saw several sleeping bags between cars.  It looked like we were the first to begin.   Following the trail with just headlamps was easy – we just hiked where the weeds and foliage wasn’t.  We spotted a deer in the darkness whose eyes reflected back at us eerily.  The dark outlines of Pyramid and the Bells towered over us.  Soon, we were at the large junction where the trail split.  Left continued to Crater Lake, right headed up to Buckskin Pass and to our turnoff onto the climber’s trail that leads up North Maroon. 

Finding the lefthand turnoff was easy.  It was at exactly 10,800 feet and at the beginning of a large open, grassy area.  The trail then dipped down and crossed Minnehaha Creek then wound around through a really rocky area, then straight up through some cliffs.  After we emerged on top of the cliffs, we took our first break just as the sun was starting to peek above the horizon.  At this point, we were looking directly at North Maroon Peak which looked squashed from this angle.  The trail crossed through a large boulderfield and we eyed a small trail contouring south around North Maroon Peak.  We followed that route along steep, grassy slopes.   At this point the trail climbed slowly.  Soon we noticed a large rocky rib or fin coming off the eastern face of the mountain.  Once we got around this fin, we had our first close-up views of South Maroon Peak.  The trail then climbed directly into the mountain on the shadowy south side of the rib, then headed straight up.  At this point, most of the grass disappeared and the climbing transformed into the loose Elk rock.   The climbing was mostly pretty easy.  The crux of the climb was a 20 foot 4th class dihedral that I didn’t think was too difficult; the rock was really solid.

After the dihedral we emerged on the northeast ridge. We followed the ridge almost all the way to the summit.  About 100 feet below the top though, we swung left and scrambled the rest of the way.  We arrived around 8:30, I think.   From here we were able to spy the rest of our route.  The traverse between the two mountains wasn’t far at all but the ridge looked really thin and precipitous in places.  We stayed on top of North Maroon for about 30-40 minutes, then we put on our harnesses and headed down.  We figured our first rappel would come almost immediately off the summit of North Maroon.  After all, from the top of Pyramid, this looked like the most dramatic drop.  It turned out though that we were able to downclimb the entire way.  We beared right (west) and made a few tricky moves, but nothing to extreme.  Soon, we were on the ridge.  As typical for a lot of the routes we find ourselves, we had to do a lot of scouting from side to side to find a way through.   The best way in retrospect for the first part was probably the lefthand side.   At times we were back on the main ridge though.

After a while, about halfway through the traverse, we came to a spot with 1000 foot drops on either side of us and a sheer 30 foot drop in front of us.  I scouted around but couldn’t find any passage.  The only way, it seemed, to downclimb this section was to go back quite a bit and drop way down on the north side.  That would hardly constitute a ridge traverse and we both didn’t want to lose a couple hundred feet of elevation.  Thus, this was our first rappel.   We found no spots for a real anchor so we just threw the rope around a huge boulder.  Ken headed off first with no problems.  Then, I headed down.   When we were both down, Ken started tugging on the rope but it wouldn’t budge.   It seemed like we were going to have our first small crisis by not being able to loose the rope.  We both pulled on it though and it came through, really easily after the first tug.  At this point we were on a really thin section of ridge with another 60-foot drop-off just in front of us.  So, we rappelled again, this time with a sling anchored to a large boulder.  After this rappel, we still hadn’t arrived at the Bell Cord couloir on the east side below South Maroon peak.  We could see the drop-off though and it seemed this would be another point for a rappel.  To our surprise, we picked a fairly easy, albeit 4th class, route down to the Bell Cord and then began our climb up to South Maroon.

The climb to South Maroon peak was more difficult than I was expecting, probably because I had convinced myself in my mind that once the traverse was done, all the difficulties would be over (boy, was I wrong).  Anyway, the climb up to South Maroon follows solid ledges and ridges all the way up.  Just as we were about to summit another party (the first of the day) arrived on top.  They congratulated us as we arrived and Ken and I paused to sign our name in the register.  As we were enjoying the remainder of our lunch, a party of four arrived on top to.  They had also climbed the peak by the standard South Ridge route.  After an hour so, we headed down.  This side of South Maroon Peak is very convoluted so it would be wise to know the route well.  We followed this party down but to our surprise, they got lost and led us down a much more difficult route.  One of the downclimbs was really scary and loose.  These guys seemed like hiking veterans, one of them reported that this was even his 4th attempt on the mountain, and yet they lost the route on the way down.   After we got through the really difficult stuff, Ken and I continued and we were able to get us back on the correct route.  Even the “correct” route is difficult to follow on this mountain.  Finally, we were on the south ridge and after a lot of twisted turns we began the downclimb. 

The downclimb off of South Maroon was not fun at all.  In fact, it was pretty miserable.  It’s a 2500 foot descent from the ridge to the valley floor along steep grassy slopes with scree tossed in.  So, that made for much slipping and staggering.  In the end, our legs were so tired that they were trembling a bit.   We didn’t take any breaks, for just standing was almost as hard work as hiking down.  We just wanted to get down as quickly as possible.  When we were finally down, we found a spot on the trail that was really close to Maroon Creek so we wandered down, pulled off our boots and socks and soaked our feet for a while.  We also washed the dirt off our legs and arms and splashed water in our faces.  This really perked us up.  We hiked the rest of the way out non-stop.  The hike was pretty enjoyable actually.  Crater Lake is really pretty and we had nice views of the Bell Cord couloir and some large waterfalls coming off of North Maroon Peak.

In the end, this turned out to be probably the toughest hike that I’ve done to date.  I really enjoyed the climb up North Maroon, the traverse, and the climb to South Maroon.  I really would have enjoyed glissading the downclimb on South Maroon Peak!

Pyramid Peak

Northeast Ridge route

Finally!  We’ve conquered Pyramid Peak.  Ken and I had failed on the same route back on Memorial Day weekend because the ridge was so corniced and dangerous.  I think we might could have climbed the mountain by the northwest ridge but we didn’t even consider it then.  Ken and I arrived in the Maroon Bells parking lot in the late afternoon and set up my tent right next to the car in a downpour!  Dan and Ryan also joined us for this trip, however they didn’t camp in the parking lot and instead elected to get up at 2am and drive out to meet us.  We all met up around 5:45 am.  The weather was overcast but at least it wasn’t raining.  I preferred overcast climbs but a rainstorm would probably turn us around on a difficult peak like this and I certainly didn’t want to fail again.

We began hiking around 6:15am and made quick time up the trail.  We found the turnoff with no problems and had no trouble in following the trail, which was obliterated by snow in May.
 
The trail zig zags around, crosses a short boulder field, then begins an unrelenting, brutally-steep, climb into the amphitheater below the mighty north face of the peak.  I think this is the longest consistently steep trail that I’ve ever been on.  After a little over an hour, we emerged into the amphitheater.  Instead of a nice snow bowl this time, it was a massive, deep pile of rubble and talus.  It’s very time consuming to rock-hop your way through it but we did.  We headed straight for the north face for a long time then headed hard left to begin the long climb up to the northeast ridge.  The climb up to the ridge wasn’t as treacherous as I thought it would be.  Last May, even though we had crampons and our ice axes, it was a lot scarier.  With complete snow meltoff, the climb to the ridge is tedious and loose, but I never felt that it was very dangerous, except from potential rockfall from parties above, and even then it was nominal.  Still, we had our helmets on and indeed there was a group of three in front of us though they didn’t knock anything onto us.  

Ken and I got in front of Ryan and Dan.  This was Ryan’s first fourteener (what an intro!) and he was breathing hard not being accustomed to the altitude.  About three fourths the way up, we cut over to the right to intersect the ridge at it’s lowest point and cut off a bit of hiking.  The main trail just goes straight up to the ridge but there’s no need to go that way.  We discovered the cutoff last May when there was no trail and we just climbed up easiest route on the steep snow.  We waited for Dan and Ryan at the ridge, which looked a lot easier now that the snow had melted and the easier route was now visible.

The first part of the ridge is 3rd class and not too hard at all.  Eventually, while still on the ridge, we came up to a large wall which we thought would be the crux.  However, there’s a prominent notch to squeeze through here and we continued on, this time on the left side of the ridge.  We traversed some more then descended a bit and then were faced with a little dicey cliff to traverse.  The cliff traverse is easy but it does get really narrow (like only a foot wide).  So, if “The Narrows” on Longs Peak freaked you out, don’t even consider a climb of Pyramid.  After traversing the cliff, we continued around the ridge and then were at the “official” crux of the climb -  a long 4th class gully on pale-colored rock.  The other climbers that we’d seen were not too far in front of us at this point.  I started up the section then I heard someone shout “Rock!”.  About a second later, a rock came whizzing down the gully about 20 feet from me.  It was enough to spook me so I came down and waited.  Ken however decided to go on ahead – he was anxious to pass the climbers.  Once he had climbed most the way up, he shouted down that it was ok for the rest of us to follow.  This section isn’t too hard at all really but it’s super dangerous because of the potential rockfall. 

At the top of the 4th class section, we met up with the three other climbers.  We talked for a while and discussed our plans for the remainder of the route.  Dan and Ryan were still working their way up the 4th class section.  We hollered down to Dan and Ryan directions for the most expedient route up then we and the other party headed up.  The other party was in front of us but they soon choose a route that I wasn’t too crazy about.  So Ken and I decided to forge our own route directly up the mountain.  Most of the remaining route finding consisted of scouting from side to side with comments like “Nope, there’s a 500 foot drop here.” and “Can’t go this way – there’s a 1000 foot drop over the north face here.” but we were fast and we picked a perfect route to the top.

Our route was fairly direct from the 4th class section.  It wended straight up the face, then swung right about 100 feet below the summit.  Above the north face we weren’t able to see the other climbers at all.  We had no idea where they had gone.  We climbed ledges above the north face until we finally arrived at the junction between the northeast and northwest ridges which is about 100 horizontal and 15 vertical feet from the true summit!  We triumphantly strolled the remaining ridge to the summit.
 
The other party didn’t arrive on the top until about 45 minutes later!  And that was after Dan and Ryan.  Ryan was super-excited to make it to this summit.  We were all impressed with his resilience and determination to make it to the top.  Dan also commented that this was definitely his hardest fourteener.  This was unquestionably one of the most difficult for Ken and I (although it was to be superceded in difficulty by the Maroon Bells traverse that Ken and I completed the following weekend).

We stayed on top for a long time then began the long and dangerous descent.  The descent reminded me why this is such a dangerous mountain.

I led both parties down the exact same route that Ken and I had climbed up.  For the most part, it was a safe route down.  The rock was fairly solid and we avoided most of the really loose stuff.  However, somewhere above the the 4th class gully, Dan was standing on a large rock that both Ken and I had climbed over.  Ken was below and to the left of Dan and I was about 10 feet below Dan.  Suddenly, without warning, the rock, which was about the size of a large cooler, just popped from under his feet.  Dan started to fall, he managed to catch himself with the help of Ken.  The rock tumbled down right towards me.  I hopped quickly to the left and out of it’s way as it bounded down the gully.  Thank God no one was in the gully then because they would be hard pressed not to be pulverized by shards of the rock as it broke into smaller pieces.  We could smell the flaming friction smell of the rock as it picked up frightening speed and broke into smaller pieces. 

This was a really fun climb, but it is to be taken seriously by all climbers.