Trip Report
Pyramid Peak was one that I had been wanting to get
out of the way. I had Capitol and Little Bear. Along with
Pyramid, these three make up some of the hardest fourteeners by a
standard route. When you are talking about the "hardest" of
something, it is somewhat of a relief to finally get that thing
done. So, part of me was excited and looking forward to Pyramid,
and part of me was just wanting to get it "out of the way." After
it was all done, Pyramid wasn't that bad after all...
Scotty and I camped in at one of the pay spots within the Maroon Park
grounds. We got up early, and were on the trail by 4:45. We
quickly started down the trail with our headlights on. We
wouldn't find out until later, but we missed the Crater Lake
trail. Instead we found ourselves on a trail that circumavigated
Maroon Lake. We pretty much figured it out when the trail looped
around and started heading back the direction we came from.
Unfortunately our route map didn't have the detail we needed to include
this loop trail. Luckily I had picked up a "Trails Illustraed"
map yesterday that did have the necessary detail. I pulled it out
and figured out that our intended trail was about 1/4 mile or so to the
North of where we were at. Despite the short distance, Scott and
I didn't want to bushwack our way to the trail. So, we were
headed back towards the trailhead, looking for our misdirection.
About half way back we ran into another couple that was also heading up
Pyramid. Tiffany and Ryan were heading up the same route on
Pyramid that we were. Tiffany was making her second attempt
(first time she made it to the ridge) and Ryan was making his first
fourteener attempt ever. Yeah, I said first fourteener.
What a fourteener to start on.
Tiffany had been on the route before, so, we turned around and started
to follow these guys, instead of going all the way back to the
trailhead. As we got to the end again, and started back the wrong
way again, we discussed and all greed that we were on the wrong
trail. Ultimately we found a restoration trail that went up to
the Crater Lake trail. We followed it, and were back on
route. If I were to give a tip about finding this route, I would
say, "As you are going around the north side of Maroon Lake, look for
all opportunity to turn right, and follow the right most trail."
On the return trip I found the turn that we had missed. It was an
obvious trail but it wasn't obvious in the dark that we needed to
follow it.
Okay, so now we were back on route. Probably about a mile later,
Tiffany spotted our ascent route. The trail turned left off the
main trail, and started up the slopes towards the amphitheater.
We continued up this trail for about an hour to an hour and a
half. When we reached the opening of the amphitheater there was a
huge boulderfield. At this point, we took a break. As we
started back up again, Scotty decided that he was done. It wasn't
that he was tired. He just knew that he wasn't going to venture
into the class 4. So, he decided to "exit stage left" now,
instead of later. So, Tiffany, Ryan and I continued up through
the Amphitheater. Travel through the Amphitheater consisted of
mostly snow travel, and some boulder hopping. The terrain wasn't
steep so we didn't even pull out our ice axes. The route we took
was straight into the Amphitheater, then straight left towards the East
Ridge. From a distance the East Ridge climb looked wicked.
But, as we got closer, it was just mild class 2+ scrambling. We
took another break at the bottom, then headed up.
The route of the ridge did turn out to be pretty easy. We took
out our ice axes, but they ended up being more of a burden then a
help. It was loose, but not super steep. There wasn't a
specific clear trail, but we had picked our gully from the bottom, and
we just continued to follow it up. We made the top of the ridge
in about another hour. At this point it was about 4 hours from
the trailhead. We took another break. This one needed to
count, because we would not get another break until the summit.
We ate, drank and took pictures. I should mention at this point
that Ryan was hauling a full sized SLR type digital camera up this
peak. I was impressed. Knowing my history with damaging
electronics in the mountains, I'd have surely cracked the lens on that
thing by now. Ryan had it hanging from his neck the whole way up,
and down, and never had any problems with it.
After our break we started up the ridge towards the summit.
Although the route description said to go left around the first tower,
we went right, and up-over the tower. This was a reasonable
route, and fun. I think that we tinkered with some low class 5
during this, but not with any threatening exposure. After passing
the tower, we worked our way along the ridge. We were targeting
the green rock section, which was clearly visible along the
route. Along the way we traveled a mix of class 2 all the way up
to some low class 5. We were all still fresh at this point, so
this was FUN for us. At one point we traveled along a notable
shelf on the ridge. That had some wicked exposure, and was super
cool. I should also mention that we crossed several small
snowfields along the route also. These were reasonably
easy. They all had light prints from previous days. But, we
still had to kick steps pretty good. We still didn't bother to
bring out our ice axes, although we probably should have. As
Tiffany mentioned on one of these crossings, there are a bunch of
"Axe-holes" here. And, she wasn't talking about Ryan and I.
Finally we made the green rock. This was where the crux of the
route was suppose to be. It started out solid, but it was not
solid the whole way up. We continued up the green rock.
Compared to the route work that we had already subjected ourselves to,
this wasn't that tough. We finally traversed left off of the
green rock. We later found out that we left the green rock too
high. That higher section of green rock was the suckiest of the
bunch also. We traversed mildly around the left. We
continued up. At one point we made a wicked class 5 move with
some reasonable exposure. That was the toughest move that we had
made that day. I'm pretty sure that we missed an easier
move. On the descent was found a mild chimney climb at the same
spot. It was tucked in the rock, and it wasn't cake, but it was
zero exposure. So, a fall would only mean a stubbed toe.
After that point, the rest of the way should have been easy. It
wasn't. Again, I think we were off route. Needless to say,
the rest of the way was loose and a bit nasty. But, we
managed. We summited right at the USGS marker and the
register. It had taken us just under 2.5 hours from the ridge to
the summit. Based on our descent route (marked by cairns), I
think that we should have come up more towards the north side of the
summit. Shrug!
We spent about 40 minutes on top reveling in our glory. As we
started our descent, we followed cairns towards the north side of the
summit, then down. We were all a bit rubber-legged on the
beginning of the descent. That was nerve-racking. It
probably took us 10 minutes before we got our climbing legs back under
us. The cairned route was much easier to follow on the way
down. We noticed that we had missed the route several times on
the way up. At one point - about 30 minutes from the summit -
Tiffany said, "This descent is almost disappointing." To appease
the mountain gods from this insult, I quickly said, "I wouldn't go that
far, but this is certainly easier than the route we took up."
:) We cleared the green rock, then the shelf and the snow
fields. Probably the hardest part on the descent was gaining the
top of a cornice near the saddle. I made some very sketchy moves,
gained the cornice and walked down to the saddle. I'm not sure
what Ryan and Tiffany did, but I'm sure their moves were as sketchy as
mine.
At the saddle (ridge start) we took out last break. It took us
around 1 hour 45 minutes to get back down to this point. After
our break, I was off like a bat out of hell. I wanted to get down
that ridge as fast as I reasonably could. My legs were feeling
strong, and I was looking forward to getting to the bottom for some
glissading fun. I made it back down to the Amphitheater in 24
minutes. My route down wasn't pretty though. I cliffed out
several times, and made some mild class 4/5 moves down. But, I
could smell the bottom and wanted to be down. Tiffany and Ryan
made it down shortly after I did. We worked our way across the
boulderfield. At the top of the snowfield, I yanked out my ice
axe, and hit the glissade. Except for the bump-bump-bump on my
ass, it was a blast. My butt was sore at the bottom for sure
though. We made the exit to the Amphitheater in about 35 minutes.
We didn't bother with a break at the top. We started heading down
towards the main trail. I pulled ahead of Ryan and Tiffany along
the descent route, but I waited for them at the main trail. My
legs just get into a specific pace on the way down, and it easier just
to go my pace, then stop and wait later. At the trail junction we
met up again, and started to the trailhead. We ultimately made
the trailhead in just over 1 hour from the exit of the
Amphitheater. Round trip was just over 11 hours.
This was an awesome climb. The toughest parts of the route were
in the top 1000 feet. I'm sure that we tinkered in the class 5
range, but none of us felt over challenged. Great climb and great
climbing partners!
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