Maroon Peak (14,156 feet) and North Maroon Peak (14,014 feet)
Via the Maroon Lake Trailhead
September 7, 2009 
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Beau heading up the east slope of South Maroon Peak.
The view of the Maroon Bells from Maroon Lake is the most classic Colorado Mountain picture.  The Bells are definitely majestic looking peaks.  Climbing both of these majestic peaks in one day is certainly one of the “classic” climbs.  I was hoping to have several partners for this climb.  But, when it all shook out, it was just myself and a buddy from www.fourteenerworld.com – Beau.  Beau and I were to meet at the trailhead at 4:30

Looking down the east slopes of Sourth Maroon Peak during the climb.
am.  4:30 came quickly.  I drove the car around the parking lot and found a car that resembled the one that Beau said he would be driving.  Beau and I made our first, in person, introductions.  We both looked up at the sky and expressed some amount of concern for the weather.  It was moderate overcast and the weather report indicated 40% chance of rain, but most likely in the afternoon.  Beau and I quickly finished our breakfasts and hit the trail.  We chatted a lot on the lower trail.  Our conversations went from mountains, to jobs, to

On the ridge of South Maroon Peak, looking at the sourth face.
politics.  We were certainly in-sync on these topics, and it was very enjoyable conversation.  We hiked the Maroon trail, past Maroon Lake and Crater Lake. We ultimately made the base of Maroon Peak (also known as South Maroon) in about 1 and ½ hours. At this point our trail headed steeply up

Beau heading up the first class 3/4 crux.
hill. You would think that the uphill effort would stifle our quantity of talking, but it didn’t. It probably slowed our pace a bit, but we were enjoying our conversation. Ultimately, about halfway up the slopes, we put a moratorium on talking and kicked it into second gear. We reached the east ridge in about three hours from the base. The trail up the slopes was steep, with a little bit of mild scrambling, but relatively easy to follow.

Beau at the top of the second crux.

From the ridge, we made note that 1 hour and 30 minutes would be our goal to make the summit. We started along the south side of the summit. With a combination of route descriptions and trail cairns, the route was reasonably easy to follow. Within the first 10 minutes we had the first chance to prove our technical rock climbing skills to each other. A pair of easy chimney climbs presented themselves. Beau quickly made it up the

Beau making some final moves near the summit of South Maroon Peak.
first chimney, and around the left, up the second chimney. Beau mumbled something about these chimney climbs feeling like class 5.0, but by the time he reached the top restated that they were just tough class 4. I quickly followed. Both of us had passed the test. We were worthy climbing partners.


Beau heading up one of the gullies on South Maroon Peak
We continued along the south face of Maroon Peak. At times we lost track of the trail cairns, but never felt like we were too far off the trail. Our biggest challenge was choosing which of the gullies we should take in order to start gaining elevation on the face. Early in the south face climbing it seemed like we were loosing more elevation than we were gaining. We were eager to start gaining elevation. After all, we knew that the summit

The final pitch to the summit of South Maroon Peak.
was “UP!” Ultimately we gained several rock gullies. The gully climbing was easy, but loose – typical of the Elk Mountains. We finally made the summit in right around 1 hour 30 minutes from the point where we gained the ridge. We stopped for a food and photo break. We were excited about this summit. But, we both knew that the crux of our climbing

Rob on the top of South Maroon Peak
was still to come. Both of us were well within our skill level for the climb to the summit of Maroon Peak. We’d need to stretch ourselves to make the traverse over to North Maroon.

After our break, we eagerly started down the saddle towards North Maroon. We were hoping for a traverse time of somewhere

North Maroon Peak from the summit of South Maroon Peak.
between 1 hour and 1 hour 30 minutes. We were watching the skies for bad weather, and everything looked good, with only light cloud cover. We continued down towards the saddle. There were several moderately technical down climbs on route to the bottom of the saddle. Beau and I pretty much took turns going first on these challenging down climbs. Beau got stuck with the third one, and this one was a duzy. Beau literally got

Looking back at the initial downclimb on the Maroon Peaks traverse.
stuck trying to make the down climb. He tried at least a dozen times trying the make it down, but couldn’t get it done without jumping. And, jumping down was not a reasonable option, because a bad landing would mean falling much further. So, Beau pulled himself back onto the ledge. I was willing to give it a try myself, but before that, we decided to try and find a better way down. We traversed back up the route a bit. Along the south side, we ultimately found an easier way down. Whew. We continued down until we were just

Beau making one of the crux moves on the traverse.
above the very bottom of the saddle. At that point we found ourselves “cliffed out” We were about 20 feet above the very bottom of the saddle, and there was no way we were going to down climb this one. So, again we started looking for another way down. Beau noticed that there was a gully, leading to a ledge that went along the south (left) side of the route. Gaining this feature meant that we had to re-climb a few sections, but that was not difficult. We got to the top of the gully, climbed down

Rob at the top of another traverse crux move, watching Beau pondering his strategy.
the gully, and walked along the ledge to the very bottom of the saddle. Getting to the base of the saddle probably only took us 20 minutes. At this point we figured that we were home free. Climbing up was easier than climbing down, and we were half way done. Wrong!

Mountain goats show us the way to the top.

The climb up from the saddle started off with a very technical pair of class 4 climbs. They weren’t all that hard really, but the exposure on them was extreme. It literally felt like your butt was hanging out over the abyss. Beau tackled the first one, then I took on the second one. Neither of us had any problem. At that point, we lost our route. We searched, and ultimately found some cairns leading around the south

Back at South Maroon Peak.
(left) side. The moral of the story for this traverse is this: “If you are looking for the route, first look, up. If you don’t see any cairns up, then look around the south side.” We continued around the south side. I can’t remember all the details, but the route consisted of several exposed ledges, several class 4 climbs, and a few loose gully climbs. I will mention that the route does drop down a little

Beau pondering the final pitch move at the top of North Maroon Peak.
in a few points. Also, the route traverses around the south side (left) much more than either Beau or I had expected. We had it stuck in our heads that the summit of North Maroon was UP, not left. So, we found ourselves mistakenly looking up, instead of down or around. Regardless, we managed to make it to the final summit pitch. That was when we saw a couple looking

South Maroon Peak from just below the summit of North Maroon Peak.
down on us; then, three, no four, no five looking down on us. They were as curious about us as we were about them. We were still not completely sure how to make the final summit pitch. So, Beau’s thought was, “let’s see the route that they take down.” We watched as this group literally ran down from the summit. They ran by us, then out of view. Wow! Those mountain goats sure are fast on the rocks.

Looking down at the Lakes and the trailhead from the summit of North Maroon Peak.

Beau and I continued towards the summit, approximately following the path that the goats had come down. We made it to the summit of North Maroon. To our mild disappointment it took us 2 hours from the summit of Maroon Peak. We didn’t beat ourselves up too badly though. We were in celebration mode. We took another quick break, keeping an eye on the weather as we snacked. The weather continued to look good, but at this point we were flirting with fire. It was 1 pm in

Beau and Rob on North Maroon Peak.
the afternoon, and it wasn’t a good idea being so high up in the mountains in the afternoon.

After snack and photos, we started down from North Maroon. Beau and I took turns leading the route down. We never really felt like it was technically challenging. The hardest part was keeping track of the trail cairns. There were certainly plenty of them, but sometimes they just were not where you’d expect them to be. As a general rule of thumb, the route traversed left (or counter clockwise) around the mountain. The route descended several gullies and cliff bands, and traversed left around

The initial down climb from North Maroon Peak.
several ribs or ridges. As we approached the base (around 12,000 feet), Beau and I concurred that we were surprised at how easy the descent off North Maroon had been. We suspected that the more technical traverse had desensitized us to some of the more difficult stuff. Regardless, the descent on north Maroon was a pleasant surprise. By the time we reached the boulder field at the bottom, you could tell that both of us were wasted. Beau stumbled several times just before the boulder field, creating some

Typical North Maroon slopes - the route.
very interesting new mountain dance moves. I was cursing every step on the boulder field, as my feet were starting to hurt. And, every time that a boulder turned under my feet, I grumbled. We rested and snacked a bit just after the boulder field. At this point we got a bit of rain and hail from the weather gods. This would be the only rain that we saw all

Typical North Maroon slopes - the route.
day. It didn’t last long, and was actually pretty refreshing. After our break, we continued down towards the main trail. Just before the main trail there is a neat little class 3 down climb. Beau and I both pondered about how many people (on the ascent) might turn back at this little section, for fear at what else might be ahead. We reached the main trail, and started our long slog out. The walk out always seems long, and this walk was no different. Although Beau and I were chatter boxes at 6 am in the morning, we weren’t talking much at this point. Both of us were just shuffling forward, and trying to focus on the rocks and tree roots, so that we didn’t trip up. It is hard to imagine that we’d have to focus so hard on an easy trail hike, when just 4 hours prior we were literally hanging our bodies out over the edge

Classic picture of the Maroon Bells from Maroon Lake - "The Deadly Bells!"
of 1,000 foot cliffs.

We finally got back to Maroon Lake, and we both perked up a bit. Our total round trip time was about 12 hours. Our descent from North Maroon was about 4 hours. We got back to the cars and we both sighed relief. We were both exhausted. We chatted for just a few minutes, as I had to get back to town and make phone calls to tell everyone that I was down. I’ve matched up with relative strangers in Colorado now a few times. It amazes me that having the mountains in common makes for an immediate great partnership. It was great hiking with Beau, and I’d call him “my partner” any time.
THE NUMBERS TIME (hh:mm) DISTANCE (miles)
TH to the base of South Maroon 1:34 4.5
The base of South Maroon to the ridge 3:01 1.7
South Maroon ridge to the summit 1:28 0.8
On the summit of South Maroon 0:14 -
The traverse to North Maroon 2:11 0.7
On the summit of North Maroon 0:12 -
Summit of North Maroon back to the TH 3:28 4.4
TOTAL 12:08 12.1


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