From Silver Pick Basin
We’d been discussing a climb of the Wilson group for a long time. We finally planned to climb all three fourteeners there the weekend of August 12th. We planned to drive out on Friday, climb Wilson Peak on Saturday, climb the Mount Wilson – El Diente traverse on Sunday, and drive back that night. That’s a pretty ambitious plan, but we felt up to it.
We arrived at the Silver Pick basin trailhead about 30 minutes before dark and easily found a place to car camp. The parking area looks initially really small, but small roads wind back in the woods with all sorts of camping spots. Ken slept in the back of his truck on his new air mattress and I lay down on top of two thermarests and slept great – except for the truck that showed up at 2am and the other truck that showed up at 5:15 am and got stuck in a narrow turn around while it’s headlights were beating down on us like the noonday sun.
We decided to just go ahead and get up anyway since the alarm was already set for 5:30. We began hiking around 6:05, 6:10 or so. Once you emerge out of the trees, the rest of the hiking is among talus and scree so it’s not exactly a scenic or lush approach, however, the road and trail is in great shape. The road continues past the gate for a while and eventually turns into a trail. We were able to stay on a trail the whole way up to the Rock of Ages saddle at 13,150 feet. We were surprised at how easy it was to get to the saddle. When we looked into Navajo Basin, we realized that we should have brought our camping stuff and just set up camp in the basin after completing Wilson Peak. Our plan was originally to pack up after Wilson Peak and backpack into Navajo Lake – just a change of scenery. But when we saw how easy it was, we changed our plans to day hike the traverse from Silver Pick.
Once we made it to the saddle, we traversed along the south side of the peak along a well-established trail. Then, after just a short time, we arrived at one of the Wilson Peak – Gladstone saddles. Once we were around the saddle, traversing again on the mountain, we had the view of the remainder of the route. Though there’s no one correct way to climb the remainder of the route, the best suggestion is probably to continue traversing and aim for the saddle below the last high point before the summit. The climbing up to this point was very easy. There was one little 3rd class section right after the saddle but it wasn’t hard or scary at all. We continued all the way up to the saddle below the false summit.
The remainder of the climb is a lot of fun. It’s challenging 3rd class scrambling and a good way to finish the mountain. We passed one party on their way down but we had the entire summit to ourselves for a long time.
Between Mount Wilson and El Diente these two mountains is the infamous traverse which we would be attempting the following day. Overall, this mountain was very easy and a lot of fun. It was only a 7-mile round trip and about 3600 feet of elevation. That may sound like a lot, but we had had an intense summer and this was probably the easiest to date…a good warm-up for what lay ahead.
Posted 9 years, 11 months ago. Add a comment
When my hiking friends had other things to do this weekend, I figured I’d take advantage and climb a fourteener that still remained on my list. Ken and Kirk had done this peak last year and I, in turn, had missed out. However, solo hikes themselves are very rewarding sometimes so I was really looking forward to this trip. Of course, being a fourteener, I wouldn’t truly be alone. There would certainly be other hikers and climbers up here. The one thing about this trip that I was a little apprehensive about was the length: approximately 23 miles round trip. Ouch.
I left Denver mid morning on Saturday and enjoyed a great drive out to the Elks. The dirt road to the trailhead is passable to all cars. It gets a little rough the last couple hundred yards but it’s really no big deal. The road terminates in a fairly small parking area with views up the Snowmass Creek valley.
The beginning of the trail does not start directly up the middle of the valley. That’s private property so the trail stays fairly high hugging the left hand side of the valley. It’s about an eight or nine mile trip to Snowmass Lake which is a worthwhile destination itself. Along the way the trail passes through spectacular pristine wilderness. About four to five miles into the trip I looked up another valley across Snowmass Creek and saw an impressive waterfall. Beyond that, I spotted the northern summit of Snowmass Mountain.
A couple of miles more I arrived at the famous Snowmass Creek log jam. A lot of guidebooks, websites, and word-of-mouth talk describes the log jam crossing as fairly serious. Well, it’s not; it’s very easy to cross and the logs are wedged in place nicely. The size of the log jam is impressive though.
On the other side of the log jam, I began the final ascent to Snowmass Lake. The trail first followed the valley a little longer then began switching back as I emerged into a dense pine forest. A little further up, there’s a labeled trail junction with the right fork heading to Snowmass Lake. Although I didn’t pass that many people, I was amazed at the amount of people who were day hiking up to the lake. That’s a 16-mile hike, pretty hefty for one day.
I knew I was getting close because I could see the outline of Hagerman Mountain through the trees. I passed one very impressive waterfall on my left then hiked a little more and arrived at the base of the lake. The creek formed another very pretty waterfall right as it left the lake. The water flowed over a very smooth 30-foot rock which formed a smooth curtain of water. I began searching for a spot to camp off on the right hand side of the lake. I found a pretty good spot and set up my bivy sack and had lunch/dinner on the edge of the lake. After eating I wandered over to the other side of the creek and found even better camping spots. I ended up moving my campsite to a spot within twenty feet of the waterfall. I nestled my bivy sack in between large ponderosa pines and a huge fallen tree trunk. This was the best campsite around!
I talked to a few other people before going to bed. Most were up there just to hike around or to fish. Of everyone I spoke with (including people along the trail) only one person was planning on climbing Snowmass the following morning.
I turned in fairly early and was content to just relax and listen to the waterfall. I took the picture as the moon was rising. I fell asleep pretty quickly and slept great.
The next morning I arose just as the sun was rising and began hiking pretty quickly. The first part of the hike took me around the lake through a long grove of willows. The trail began steeply climbing up into the basin where the Snowmass Mountain snowfield was. Actually, there had been less than average snowfall this year and there wasn’t much left of the permanent snowfield other than hard and icy snow. I kept on the rocks the entire time.
Without the snowfield, this trip is a massive rock hop up to the saddle between Hagerman and Snowmass Mountain. Hagerman looks quite difficult from this angle. Snowmass, on the other hand, is pretty easy. Near the top, the scrambling increases but it’s nothing difficult at all, mostly moderate 3rd class scrambling. I passed one party who were on their way down (they must have left well before sunrise) but when I arrived at the summit, I was all alone. I signed the register and took in the great views of the surrounding Elk Mountains.
I decided to descend straight off the face of Snowmass. It was pretty steep from the actual summit, so I downclimbed a little bit and then headed straight down. It was pretty easy for the most part. It was fairly loose but quite manageable with my trekking poles. It didn’t take me long at all to arrive at the base and I began rock-hopping my way back down. Along the way, I passed the only other person that I’d met who was actually planning on climbing the mountain. I gave him my various opinions on the route then continued on.
Back at camp I refreshed myself in the creek. I spent a fair amount of too sitting on a small island in the creek and enjoying the views. I began the hike out sometime in early afternoon.
This ended up being a true march. I passed a few parties on the way down and would stop to talk to them, taking advantage of the rest time. I met one couple who had spent part of their honeymoon hiking up to Snowmass lake and now, twenty five years later, were making a return trip. I also passed a group of college guys who were intent on climbing Snowmass the following day so I passed on my various observations on the climb.
By the time I was within a mile of the trailhead my legs were absolutely spent. Twenty-three miles in one weekend (not to mention 5700 feet of elevation) is pretty rough. On top of that, this was a very busy summer, so I was by no means walking on fresh legs. In any event, I made it back to the car exhausted. I took a lot of time to stretch and relax before I began the long drive back to Denver.
Posted 9 years, 11 months ago. Add a comment
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!
