One of many
trip reports under the
SilGro home page for Alan Silverstein and Cathie
Grow.
Email me at
ajs@frii.com.
Last update: July 26, 2024
(Previous trip report: 1985_0804_Pawnee,Toll.htm)
(A
Fourteener
trip report.)
(Originally posted to internal newsgroup:
hpfcla:hpnc.general / ajs / 1:20 pm Aug 12, 1985)
Here's a followup to Paul Beiser's great posting on climbing both of the Maroon Bells. After his successful expedition, Dave Landers and I could naught but attempt the same climb -- in the opposite direction no less, north Bell (North Maroon Peak) to south, which is the usual route (although we didn't make the traverse after all).
Friday, Aug 9: We left Fort Collins late at about 1020 and got to Aspen in time to kill an hour roaming around the mall until the Maroon Creek road opened at 1700 (and not five minutes earlier!) We cruised to the upper parking lot and were on the trail with full packs by 1735.
Getting to Crater Lake took us only 55 minutes, so we decided to head farther up towards Buckskin Pass before stopping for the night. (That makes it sound too easy. Actually Dave forged ahead while I moaned and groaned about the extra distance...)
After another 35 minutes and 450' of rise, we found a very nice camp spot left of the trail above Minnehaha Gulch at about 10650'. It was a wonderful place to sleep out under the stars, count meteors and satellites, and watch Jupiter rise over Pyramid Peak.
Saturday, Aug 10: At 0605 we dropped a hundred feet into the creek, found a way across, and bushwhacked up a very steep slope to the talus field high above Crater Lake. We didn't waste any time looking for the "right" trail, which was maybe just as well considering how steep and overgrown it later turned out to be. After an hour we were near the start of the real fun, the crossing of the ledge around the northeast triangular face of North Maroon Peak. It really wasn't hard to find the well-beaten trail, nor to cross it, although it wound around a very steep slope. (From this point on it was "steep" all the way to the summit, usually 40-50 deg or more. I'll leave out the adjective, but you can mentally add it twice in each sentence.)
After a short time we headed up a [steep] broad gully, then cut left over a [steep] ridge at the top, which took us to the bottom of the "Stairway to Heaven". This was a very large, wide, grassy gully with many rock steps, dirt, moss, flowers, and a diving cliff below where we entered it. It's also where route-finding became difficult: "Partly obvious trails with scattered cairns, 50% chance of going the wrong way if you get too adventurous."
There were two other parties of two people heading up at about the same time, scattered across the gully, and we helped each other route-find. It turned out that the Borneman-Lampert description was pretty good from here on, if we read it carefully and literally. The main surprises were that cairns were hard to spot, and the mountain was (naturally) bigger and more complicated ("interesting") than we imagined from reading route descriptions.
(I wrote back then:) "(If you actually plan to climb this peak, this paragraph is for you; otherwise you can skip it if you are faint of heart.) At the top of the Stairway you encounter a deep rectangular rock cut. Stay left, up to the northeast ridge, where you can see over for the first time -- very breathtaking. This is north of and just above the huge white cliff you can see from the valley floor. Cut a short way left and then up the third rock chimney right from the cliff -- marked with arrows scraped on the rocks, courtesy yours truly. Out of the chimney, ascend a short section of braided dirt/rock trails to a narrow rock ridge where you can see most of the rest of the route. Follow cairns up, off the left side of the ridge on ledges and cuts, winding left and upwards with one sudden reverse back onto the ridge across a cliff. This takes you to a broad dirt/rock slope below a large, black, rock-layer cliff band extending to your right across the north face. Searching around reveals the truth, that the route is up the first chimney right of the left awful edge of the cliff, marked with one cairn at the base. It's tricky but you can get up it with some trepidation moves. From here, a short climb west takes you to narrow good rock, a slight saddle where the cliff-ridge joins the north flat face. Then haul yourself up the weaving, cairned route the last several hundred feet. You'll know when you are close to the summit. (We now rejoin our regularly scheduled description.)"
Even the last few feet to the summit of North Maroon Peak (14014') were a tough climb. Suddenly we topped out on a small, circular summit perhaps 20' across, with one large cairn in the middle. It was one of the smallest summits of any Fourteener I'd climbed so far, with steeper drop-offs, comparable to Torreys Peak or Mount Harvard. To the south, Maroon Peak (the south summit) loomed tall, and the connecting ridge snaked precariously across. We arrived at 1035 (4.5 hours to climb 3400', pretty slow going), had a quick lunch, and watched some people out crossing the ridge while puffy dark clouds formed. Thanks to the weater, we "elected to forego" the certain thrill of making the traverse, and instead started back down at 1105.
Somehow it took us 40 minutes to reach the upper rock chimney. Now if we hadn't met a pair with a rope going up as we came down, I'd have had to do that chimney straightaway, and probably would have made it. But since that rope was on its way back down to us, I chickened after out one nearly-successful attempt to down-climb. We admired the awesome scenery for an hour, from Snowmass Mountain on the left around and past Pyramid Peak on the right, down to Crater Lake and Maroon Lake.
After watching in amazement as five or so people scrambled up the crack, and four or so nimbly lowered themselves down it, the rope arrived. I used that lifeline for the one precious hold I needed in order to descend... No sweat. (I gotta buy myself a piece of rope... [Later I did...]) Dave of course had no problems. (Years later when I returned to North Maroon Peak, I found and took a different route I liked better!)
The rest of the descent followed naturally, with the weather getting no worse, and our confidence built. The lower crack was a breeze (by comparison). We returned to camp at 1550; our total down-climbing time was about 3.5 hours. After packing up, it took us only an hour to return to the Maroon Lake trailhead at 1740.
North Maroon Peak was not the longest climb I'd done, nor the highest, but it certainly was the technically most difficult. It was harder than anything I ran across a month earlier on the first 90% of Maroon Peak.
By 1930 we were attacking the jeep trail up Castle Creek -- I somehow got my Datsun to the first creek crossing. We spent the night camped in a nice open spot at the dead end of a side road. At 2200 it was clear and glorious -- another nice night for leaving the tent packed up. But by midnight I was rolled under a folded groundcloth counting seconds between flashes and thunderbolts, trying to keep the rain out... Sigh.
Sunday, Aug 11: Next morning was wet and cloudy, so we gave up on doing Castle and Conundrum, and headed home instead.
Alan Silverstein
(Next trip report: 1985_0816-25_Evans,Pikes.htm)