I left home at about 12:30 Monday, headed for Aspen via Independence Pass. Had an uneventful drive, though I spent a lot of time driving around Aspen in rush hour traffic obtaining food, cash and beer. A lot of people like Aspen, but that town just irritates me. I have yet to meet someone working at a store who passes for a friendly person.

I passed the entrance station on Maroon Creek Road at 18:00. The car lane was blocked and the person inside the station waved as I drove past. I drove up the road to the parking lot at the end, and wandered around, checking out the Bells. They looked impossibly steep. I couldn't see any sign of a trailhead register, so I figured with the new registration system used for the Maroon Bells - Snowmass Wilderness, perhaps the registration station is farther up the trail. I drove back down the road and chose a campsite at the second campground. I saw no sign of a fee station there, so I assume camping is free as long as you don't take a spot that's reserved. I set my alarm for 03:00, had a couple beers and read until I started nodding off.

After an unusually good night's sleep, thanks to some valerian capsules I took before bed, I awoke at 03:15. I must have slept through the alarm or just had a delayed waking reaction. Since I was surrounded by other campers still asleep, I packed camp quickly and quietly and drove out of the campground using only parking lights. At the day use parking lot there were several vehicles, but I didn't notice anyone sleeping next to their cars. I picked a parking spot away from the other vehicles, made some oatmeal, and got my gear ready for the climb. I used my Camelback loaded down with 3 quarts of water in the bladder, and 3 extra pint bottles of water for a reserve. I had a 100' length of 8mm static line, a harness, locking carabiner, figure 8 descender, and several slings for rappel anchors. I was leaving the ice axe, taking my trekking poles, and a helmet, of course. All geared up, I hit the trail at 04:00.

I was hiking under clear skies and a quarter moon, which cast enough light that I was able to go without headlamp for much of the initial hike up the Maroon Creek trail. Just before reaching the lake, I was startled by a beaver splashing into a pond next to the trail. I kept my eyes peeled for a register station but never did see one. I still don't know where hikers are supposed to get the register tags. I could see the outline of the Maroon Bells, and they sure looked steep.

At 04:50 I reached the trail junction just before Crater Lake where I was to take a right toward Buckskin Pass. I stashed two of my pint water bottles under some brush, figuring I would want them on the return trip. My altimeter read 10,100' at this point. I started up the trail, watching for the trail on the left after I'd hiked a half mile or so. A porcupine ambled across the trail at one point. The eastern sky was beginning to lighten, and soon I stopped to put away the headlamp. I also removed my long sleeve shirt and the pant legs from my convertible pants, as the temperature was unusually warm. At 10,700', I passed a strong trail leading off to the left, but I didn't notice any cairns. Since I had read several reports where parties had left the Buckskin Pass trail too early, and that the correct trail was at 10,800', I continued on. The trail switchbacked up a steeper section and at 10,800', I was atop a steep bluff above Minnehaha Creek. I decided that the trail I passed was the intended route, and went back down. This time I noticed a low cairn at the trail junction.

After crossing the creek, I made my way west up a slope, following occasional cairns. Somewhere on this slope I lost the trail, but continued upward through a prominent notch that obviously led to the upper basin below North Maroon's north face. I put my helmet on while passing through the notch, as it was loaded with loose rock. I climbed a waterfall on wet, mossy rock, and saw a few boot prints so I figured I was still on route. Once I reached the grassy basin, I headed south along the edge of the basin, wondering when I would see any signs of a trail. A lone deer grazed ahead of me until it sensed my presence and moved down the slope. Roach's guidebook says to head west into the basin until 11,700', but that would have taken me too high and put me in the wrong drainage. I stayed at 10,500' or so, according to my altimeter, and finally saw the trail - 100' below me. I descended to the strong, well-cairned trail, and followed it south. I don't know where I lost the trail, but unless my altimeter was way off, the elevations given in the route description didn't make sense to me.

Now the sun was up, and small, puffy clouds were filling the sky as early as 07:00. If the weather changes were any indication of the day I would have ahead of me, I would have to seriously consider bagging the traverse for this trip and just summit North Maroon. My plan was to climb North Maroon, evaluate the weather, and call Donna from my cell phone with my plans. If I decided to do the traverse, I would call again from the summit of Maroon Peak, then once more when I was done with the hike. I never bring a cell phone but I thought it prudent to carry one on this climb and check in with "base camp" periodically.

The trail was easy to follow as it led to the "grassy gully". Once in the gully, I noticed several cairn paths but all led the correct way - up. The climbing here was easy class 2 with a few class 3 spots, somewhat loose. At 12,420' I exited the gully, traversing south and entering a second gully. The grade steepened somewhat, and at one point I looked back to take a mental snapshot of the return route. I was a little surprised to see how steep the traveled path appeared. I noticed the weather appeared to be improving at this point, and with it my hopes for the traverse.

08:20, 13,000'. I reached the ridge crest, and peeked west over the top. Wow. I followed the ridge for a while, then the route became more and more convoluted and I reached the 4th class crux of the route. I encountered a chimney with several possible solutions; the exposure was not bad at all, but a fall still would have been undesirable. I decided to keep to the left side of the chimney, and passed the crux, only to do a hairy traverse right to get back on route. After the crux, I reached a wide "catwalk" section of the northeast ridge. The exposure to the south was sharp, and the ridge appeared to overhang. The views of the surrounding valley were getting better and better.

          
Fotos ©2003 by John C. Maki

The route was still sending me all over the mountain, but it wasn't hard to figure out. It reminded me a little of Pyramid Peak. After the "catwalk" I was back on the south side of the ridge, winding up and up until I reached the summit at 09:10. I signed the register, decided to tackle the traverse, donned my harness and made a quick call to Donna's voicemail at work. At 09:20 I started the traverse. The initial descent off the summit was fun, a dihedral that I was able to downclimb facing out. After mostly easy climbing along the narrowing ridge crest, I reached the first rappel point 20 minutes into the traverse. There were two large slings around two large rocks, and the actual descent path could go anywhere from the southern "point" of the ridge around to the west. I chose to rappel off the southernmost point, and moved one of the slings to join the other and added a third large sling of my own. I lowered my pack 25' down to safe ground, passed the rope through the three slings and threw it down, and threaded the rope through my figure 8. A quick safety check: solid anchor, redundant slings, harness properly donned, carabiner locked. The only thing I wasn't completely comfortable with was the sharp angle the 8mm rope made on the sandstone over the edge, so if I were to repeat this climb I'd opt for a shorter, thicker rope. I downclimbed as far as I could using the rappel as backup, until the overhang forced me off the cliff face and I finished the rappel hanging freely. The landing was nice and wide with no danger of going all the way down either side of the ridge. I detached myself from the rope, pulled it down, coiled it up and put in back in my pack. A little farther down the ridge and I reached a similar rappel point and repeated my actions.

          
Fotos ©2003 by John C. Maki

At 10:30 I reached the top of the Bell Cord Couloir, the lowest point between the two peaks. I was perhaps two thirds of the way along the traverse, with the easier third ahead of me. Two other climbers were descending to the saddle from Maroon Peak, the only other climbers I had seen all day, except when I saw them standing on Maroon's summit earlier. The downclimb to the saddle was some tricky but fun class 4, and I timed it so that neither party would be above the other on the same side of the saddle. We exchanged some information on the traverse, I removed my harness and we continued on our respective paths. The remaining climb to Maroon's summit was mostly straightforward, but I did get off route once or twice and found myself in some dicey areas. One spot in particular had me wedging my boots into a wet clay/gravel mix between steep rock and hard, icy snow, climbing up into a squeeze chimney. It was really too narrow for me and my pack, but instead of removing and hauling the pack with my rope I just twisted myself sideways. I was able to stem across to a solid rock hold with my soggy, sloppy boot sole, and magically it stayed put as I pushed up the chimney. I know I need new soles for my La Sportiva Makalus, but they impressed me nonetheless with their performance in places like this. One of the problems with climbing a route like this one solo is routefinding. In the interest of saving time, instead of sending other members of the party to explore the different route possibilities, you have to be able to eyeball a route and quickly determine whether it'll "go" or not, and just commit to it. If I had more time to spend choosing the perfect route, the overall difficulty would have been lower. On the other hand, people are killed trying to force routes on climbs like this, and you have to be able to spot the difference between "go" and "no-go" quickly and retreat when appropriate.

10:55, the summit of Maroon Peak - I made it! The clouds were darkening and I wanted off the South Ridge before any storms started, so unfortunately I had to cut my summit stay to 5 minutes: enough time to sign the register, leave another message with Donna, and swill down some water. I still had water in my Camelback but I was consciously rationing it. Many people say the routefinding on the standard South Ridge route is very tricky, but I disagree. Maybe it's easier to see the route from above, but although the route meanders all over the southwest face of Maroon for quite a while, it was well-cairned and not difficult. A couple short class 3 spots were the most difficult I found. Still, it is a tedious route and it took 1:20 hours to finally reach the point on the ridge where the steep descent to Maroon Creek begins. Along the way, while having a jerky break, three goats, two adults and a very cute kid, approached up a couloir. The eldest goat noticed me and walked directly toward me to within ten feet while I snapped photos. Satisfied that I was no threat to them, they all skipped up the ledges, amazing me with their climbing prowess. After that break, I encountered a lone climber at about noon who asked about the route to the summit. I was an hour down from the summit, so I told him it's a long way, that the route more or less follows the cairns but to beware of false trails, and of course to watch the weather. The clouds were really darkening now and I was certain that rain was imminent.

          
Fotos ©2003 by John C. Maki

The knee-pounding descent from the South Ridge drops 2800' in a mile to Maroon Creek. Using my trekking poles, I found the descent tolerable but nearly fell several times on hard packed dirt and gravel. About halfway down a spitting rain began, which felt good, but it stopped soon after. I had taken a few ibuprofen on the descent from Maroon, and they no doubt helped keep the knee inflammation down on that killer downhill run. I reached the trail at 13:35, still feeling surprisingly strong. I pounded down the trail toward Crater Lake, passing the occasional backpacker and dayhiker, a couple of which asked where I had been that day. Just before Crater Lake, I made a short detour to a running creek, and took a few moments to splash cold water on my face, neck and arms. That really woke me up, as I had been starting to feel a bit groggy and rundown. I had exhausted the water supply in my Camelback dropping down from the ridge, and was using up my reserve pint. I found my two stashed bottles and took a short break, but the mosquitoes were annoying me to the point where I got back on the trail.

As I got closer to the parking lot, the dayhikers became slower and less aware of their surroundings. I started dragging my trekking poles on the ground as I approached some hikers, hoping that the noise would draw their attention and encourage them to go from a side-by-side to a single file configuration. By the time I reached the "highway" section of smooth, flat, flawless trail, I was single-mindedly focused on the two (hopefully) cold beers in my cooler, one for each Bell. I was in no mood to be held up by Tourons who were completely oblivious to others and the fact that others might like to break 1 mph in their travels. In passing these people on the grassy trail borders, they had to grab for their hats to keep my wind from blowing them off their heads.

Just kidding, of course. I'm thankful that places like Maroon Lake exist with such good access so that even the most non-athletic of nature enthusiasts can drink in the incomparable beauty of the Maroon Bells. I may be selfish, but I'm not that selfish. At 15:00 I reached the Jeep, grabbed one of those beers and my bag of beef jerky, dropped my pack and just sat on the curb. I aired out the Jeep, removed my boots and sweaty socks and put on my Tevas. After the first beer I decided to head out, air conditioning on, and find a more private setting to change out of my stinky hiking clothes and enjoy that second beer. On the way down Maroon Creek Rd I saw George W. Bush standing on the side of the road, waiting for the shuttle bus. How bizarre.

In reflection, this was my toughest climb to date, surpassing my previous toughest climb on the Wilson/El Diente ridge. The direction of travel from north to south worked well for me, and I was happy to descend the longer but safer route down from Maroon Peak. I've seen some debate on the difficulty of the crux of the traverse, and while I rappelled it instead of climbing it up or down, I'd guess it's somewhere around 5.5-5.6. The holds seemed large and solid, but the overhang definitely bumps up the difficulty. In my opinion, it's harder than the class 4 rating Gerry Roach gives it. I'm glad to be finished with the Maroon group, though I thoroughly enjoyed the beauty of the area and the challenging, yet rewarding climbs. I doubt I'll want to climb the Bells or Pyramid again, as I feel that climbing peaks such as these is a little like playing Russian Roulette, and sooner or later a rock is bound to come down. I'll be sure to return to Maroon Creek, and I'll be content to dayhike the easy trails as just another Touron, bending my neck and gawking up at the Bells. I'll just be sure to move out of the way when I meet tired climbers on the trail...