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!
