NORTH MAROON PEAK
14,014 ft.
September 12, 1998
By Tim Briese
North Maroon was one of the 14ers I always feared the most. My uneasiness was well-founded, too, for this climb turned out to be my worst 14er nightmare.
I picked up my friend Tim Figge after work at 4:30 on Friday afternoon and we headed into the mountains. We stopped for dinner at Casa del Sol in Buena Vista before heading over Independence Pass in the dark. We arrived at our reserved campsite at the Silver Queen Campground along the Maroon Creek road about 9 p.m., and set up camp. Within 15 minutes we had set up our tent, started a campfire, and were sitting beside it warming ourselves. Even though it was dark, I sensed that this was an enchanting place to camp, with huge aspen trees towering above us in the glow of the campfire and a stream singing nearby.
Around 4 a.m. I was dismayed when I awoke to the sound of rain falling on our tent, which immediately cast doubt on the success of our climb that day. The rain stopped before we arose at 5:30, however, and we packed up in the dim, cloud-obscured moonlight and drove up to the trailhead by Maroon Lake. We hit the trail at 6:10 in the semi-darkness, with the Maroon Bells looming before us at the head of the valley. Their summits were in the clouds, but I was able to see three magnificent glaciers on their lower flanks. It had been several years since I had visited this world famous place, and it felt good to come see this beautiful spot once again.
North Maroon Peak is one of Colorado’s most difficult and dangerous 14ers to climb. I had been feeling uneasy about this climb during the weeks before, because I had often heard about the dangers of the loose rocks and cliffs on the Maroon Bells. My uneasiness only increased when I read about a climber who was about my age who was killed the weekend before on Little Bear Peak. I vowed to myself that I would be very cautious on this climb, and turn back if my safety came into question.
Tim and I hiked rapidly up the trail along Maroon Creek, with tantalizing views of North Maroon now and then, and beautiful aspen groves along the way. When we neared Crater Lake we turned to the right and continued on the Maroon-Snowmass Trail for another half mile. We carefully watched for the cairn marking the turnoff for the trail to North Maroon and found it along a high sloping meadow above Minnehaha Creek. We followed the rough climber’s trail toward North Maroon through wet bushes and up steep dirt and rock slopes that were quite slippery. It began to rain again as we neared timberline, so we pulled off the trail and got under some trees to get out of the weather as the rain steadily pattered down. This was the last grove of trees we could have used for shelter before breaking completely out of the timber. We were cold and wet after we stopped, so we started a fire using dry twigs and branches from the trees and spent a cheery hour there warming ourselves.
After a while the rain ended, but the mountaintop remained in the clouds, and our climb looked very much in doubt. These were precisely the conditions that I didn’t want to climb my first class four mountain in: fog, with wet, slippery rocks.
It began sprinkling a little again, and we decided to put on our raincoats and push on up the trail a ways and turn back when we became too uncomfortable with the conditions. As we crossed a large boulder field beneath a glacier, the rain started coming down steadily again, but we plodded slowly and cautiously on across the wet rocks. The trail then contoured across the lower northeast face of the mountain, above a steep, loose slope that led toward cliffs below. This stretch looks treacherous from a distance, but it seemed safe enough while we were on it because the steep slope below the trail is anchored by bushes and rock outcroppings. We were now entering terrain where precarious stacks of rocks were piled on ledges and cliffs above us, so we decided to put on our climbing helmets. Presently we reached the base of the grassy gully below North Maroon’s northeast ridge, and slowly climbed up it through bands of rock, grass, and steep, slippery mud. Near the top of the grassy gully we followed a trail into the next gully to the south, which we ascended to the crest of the rugged and rotten northeast ridge. By this time the rain had tapered off to occasional sprinkles.
The Maroon Bells are composed of a dark red, sedimentary rock, once laid down on an ocean floor and subsequently thrust 14,000 feet into the sky. The rock is loose and crumbling, with rockfall a constant danger on the steep slopes. Every hand and foothold has to be carefully tested for stability before putting weight on it. In spite of the dangers it presents, the rock has interesting shapes, forms, and colors. Besides the predominant maroon colored rocks, there are some that are beige, green, and gray. We saw a few rocks with embedded forms that looked like fossils and some with small wavy shapes that had the appearance of tiny sand dunes. This compressed sedimentary rock is very angular, breaking off into blocks that look like boxes, and slabs that would make nice tables. This interesting rock is quite unlike the volcanic granite found on most 14ers.
The climb up the northeast ridge above the gully was the most difficult part of the adventure, where we faced our first exposure to class four climbing, real rock climbing beyond mere scrambling. The rain had fortunately stopped, or we would have turned back here. Fog reduced our visibility, though, to about 50 yards, but cairns guided us upward fairly well. There was one place that I found rather scary, where we had to step onto a rubble covered ledge five feet wide, with a long dropoff below, and scramble up a stepped face to another ledge six or eight feet higher. It was safe enough if one was very careful, I concluded, but rather unnerving nonetheless. I didn’t want to force a route and find myself on lethal terrain. After scaling this step we found ourselves atop a narrow ridge with precipitous dropoffs on each side. This wouldn’t have been a concern on solid rock, but I didn’t trust this material very much. We continued up through a maze of ledges and steps, all the while in the fog on the dark, wet rock. Several times we thought we were near the summit, but we saw yet another rock outcropping looming higher in the fog.
Eventually we did reach the top, at about noon. We were cold, damp, and hungry. A chilly southwest wind greeted us on the summit, and my thermometer registered 38 degrees. The fog came and went, and we saw some tantalizing views down into the valley below to the west, and glimpses of the ridge to the south toward South Maroon, although we never saw the summit of the other Bell.
The climb down was as tedious and nerve-racking as the ascent had been, and the scary ledge was even more frightening going down than it had been coming up. The clouds lifted somewhat, and the views down into the valley below were incredible. The rocks dried off somewhat as we got lower, too, which made the going easier. We took a slightly different route and entered the grassy gully at its top, climbing down through a fun class four notch in a cliff band to get there. Tim really seemed to be enjoying the rock climbing. I accidentally knocked a volleyball-size rock loose, and we watched it roll wildly downhill several hundred feet at 50 miles per hour or more, which offered a sobering lesson about the dangers of this place. I suppose the upside of the poor weather was that there were no other climbers on the mountain that day, to knock rocks loose above us.
We quickly hiked back down to timberline, where we took a break and put our helmets away. Then we worked our way on down the steep, muddy trail into the valley. When we finally made it back down to the Maroon-Snowmass Trail, it seemed like we were stepping onto a highway, compared to what we had been on. Soon it started to rain again, and this time it was accompanied by frequent lightning. We were very fortunate to get off the mountain when we did. It rained all the way back down the trail, and the rain began pouring down hard over the last half mile before we reached the trailhead. At about 4:30 we sloshed back to the parking lot.
My nerves were shot after the climb. It had been my worst 14er nightmare. In retrospect, I wished we had abandoned the climb early on and tried it another day. Although it was quite an accomplishment to sneak in a climb of a very difficult peak in marginal conditions, it was something I never wanted to do again. I do not climb mountains to pursue danger, as some may do, but rather to find the exhilaration and inspiration that can come from climbing to majestic summits. Nevertheless, this climb of North Maroon proved to be an unforgettable adventure.
