14,018 ft.

July 14, 2000

By Tim Briese

I drove out to the Aspen area the evening before the climb and found a nice campsite beside a stream in the Lincoln Gulch Campground about 10 miles east of Aspen. At 4 a.m. I rose and quickly packed up camp, casting an occasional wary glance around with my flashlight, mindful of the campground host’s warning about a bear that had been frequenting the area. I was pleased to see a star-filled sky, a good portent for the day.

I left camp and headed down into Aspen and up the Maroon Creek road, pulling into the parking lot by Maroon Lake at 5:05 in faint twilight. It was just light enough to see the trail without a flashlight when I hit the trail at 5:20. I strode briskly along in the chilly air, with the Maroon Bells looming grandly up at the head of the valley. I took the lower scenic trail on the left, not wanting to miss the faintly marked turnoff for Pyramid. I went past the lake and up along the stream on the narrow trail, with tall, lush plants dripping dew on me. As I crossed roaring Maroon Creek on an excellent bridge, I wondered how I would recross it farther up the valley.

The lower trail soon merged with the main Crater Lake trail, and I continued on. I wasn’t too far from Crater Lake when I was delighted to see a large cairn about 2 feet tall marking the turnoff to Pyramid. It was about 6 a.m., and I followed a faint trail across the valley floor, pausing a moment to admire the first rays of sunlight on the majestic Bells. Maroon Creek apparently flows underground beneath the rocks here, so I did not have to cross a raging torrent, which I didn’t mind.

Soon the trail steepened dramatically and took me up an arduous 1500 foot ascent on dirt and scree toward the gap into the basin below Pyramid. The trail was more defined here, and I was glad to be on it, for it would have been a tough place for a bushwhack. I admired views of the valley below as I gained elevation. By 7 a.m. I was on the talus in the big cirque below Pyramid’s imposing 2000 foot north face. I was surprised to see a climber ahead of me, and I soon overtook him. He had climbed Pyramid before, and was headed up the northwest ridge route, while I was going up the supposedly easier northeast ridge route.

After a short break I boulder-hopped across the basin to the foot of the slope below the saddle on the northeast ridge that was my next goal. I had brought my ice ax in case there was snow in the couloir below the saddle, but there was none, so I stashed my ice ax behind a rock to pick up on my return, figuring that it would be more trouble than it was worth to carry with me on to the summit. I headed up the steep trail on more dirt and scree about 1000 vertical feet to the saddle, pausing a time or two to listen to rocks falling down Pyramid’s north face.

I arrived at the saddle at 8:15, very pleased with the 3400 feet of gain I’d done so far in just under 3 hours. I was climbing on sheer adrenalin, it seemed. I had hoped to arrive at this point early, giving myself plenty of time to carefully climb the difficult ridge ahead. This was the first time the sun shone on me, since I had been climbing in shadows of the mountain until now. The weather was sunny and perfect, just what I needed for this climb. I admired the view of Snowmass and Capitol Peaks off to the northwest as I sat down for my first real break. Pyramid’s northeast ridge loomed above me to the southwest, one of the most intimidating final approaches I could remember on any 14er, worse than Capitol or the Crestone Needle. It looked awfully steep and rough. I said a quick prayer for protection on that ridge, remembering that my primary goal was to return home safely to my family that evening. I had previously decided to climb Pyramid alone, reasoning that this would allow me greater freedom to pick a nice weather day. I figured that good weather was crucial to the success of this climb, although having an able companion would have been nice, too.

At 8:30 I shouldered my pack to tackle the real climbing that lay ahead. I proceeded carefully, evaluating each step and handhold, for the rock was loose and potentially dangerous. I steadily followed a cairned route. Soon I came to the intimidating notch and pale gray wall that the guidebooks describe as the crux of the route. I climbed into the notch and was contemplating climbing the wall, which I thought I could probably do, but felt uncomfortable with, when I noticed a large cairn with an arrow-shaped rock pointing out an alternate route about 50 feet below on the left side of the ridge. I climbed down there to have a look, and found a nice ledge that circumvented the crux wall altogether. The ledge was very narrow in one spot, less than one foot wide, but with a good rock above to hug. I liked that route much better than climbing the pale wall.

From here I followed a cairned ledge system well below the ridge crest on the left, until I reached a vertical vein of beige colored rock on which I ascended a couple of hundred feet directly up toward the summit. The beige rock seemed to be made of a harder material than the looser maroon-colored rock that most of the mountain is made up of, and I was much more comfortable scrambling up on it. I was seldom on the actual ridge crest and thus had only a couple of opportunities to peer over the thousand foot dropoffs to the right of the ridge, but that was enough to satisfy my curiosity.

The last few hundred feet below the summit seemed to be the steepest of all, and I was certainly glad to scramble up over the last few rocks to reach the summit at 9:45. The summit consisted of a fairly flat curving ridge about 50 feet long and 6 to 10 feet wide, with impressive dropoffs everywhere. Conditions were perfect: clear, calm, and pleasant. The views were incredible: from Uncompahgre to Holy Cross and beyond, 100 miles or more in any direction. There was a particularly grand view of the Maroon Bells across the Maroon Creek valley, with Snowmass and Capitol beyond. The Elk Range holds such an interesting variety of 14ers! 4000 feet below, Crater Lake looked like a tiny pond in the vast landscape. This was quite a spectacular perch!

I noticed in the summit log that only about a dozen climbers had signed in during the past week, making Pyramid one of the more lightly climbed 14ers, I supposed. This attests to the difficulty involved in reaching this wild place. Incredibly, one climber had noted that this was his first 14er!

Within ten minutes after I reached the summit, the climber I had met earlier reached the summit from the other side, and we visited for a while. He was an experienced climber who had done all the 14ers, except Culebra, and was going back to reclimb some of the more interesting ones. I noticed two other climbers coming up below on the northwest ridge route, audacious fellows who had camped just below the summit along that route the night before. As far as I knew, the four of us were the only ones to summit that day.

At 10:10 I left the top, eager to get back down off of that rugged ridge. A few small cumulus clouds were just beginning to appear in the bright blue sky. I very carefully descended, trying to remember my route up amidst that intricate maze of ledges. Going down on this steep, loose material was almost as hard as going up. Now and then I came to a steep place with a dropoff of ten feet or more, and had to do a minor backtrack to find something better. I gradually worked my way down on about the same route I had come up, again carefully checking each hold for greatest safety.

By 11:30 I was back down to the saddle, relieved to be off that tough ridge. The ridge descent took about as long as the ascent had taken. I never really felt in danger on the ridge, but I was uncomfortable on it all the way up and back. I don’t like climbing on loose, crumbly ledges. It is nerve-racking, and after a while it begins to seem that every rock is loose. The rock here seemed worse than on the ledges of Eolus last summer. I was glad to have this ridge behind me.

The rest of the descent was straightforward, but very steep, and a real kneebanger. Curiously, it hadn’t seemed so steep going up. I retrieved my ice ax at the edge of the boulder field where I had left it and began working back across the talus. Now and then I could see the other climber coming down far above me. I detoured slightly to the right to get a close look at an interesting lake in the talus near the mouth of the cirque. It appeared that a glacier hidden beneath the rocky cover of talus was slowly melting away, forming a depression about 50 feet deep and 300 feet across, with smooth sloping sides of ice and rock, and muddy water in the bottom.

My right knee was really starting to hurt as I came down the steep slope into Maroon Creek Valley. I was getting hot and thirsty, too, having exhausted my 2 quart supply. The Bells were beautiful off to my left. I was thrilled to get back down to the valley floor, and I followed the faint trail back through the rocks and trees in the afternoon heat. A few more cumulus clouds were puffing up here and there, but bright sunshine still filled the valley.

There were a lot of people on the Crater Lake trail when I reached it. It was good to see some humanity again! A family looked curiously at me as I came stomping out of the woods down the slope toward the trail, ice ax in hand. I met a few dozen people coming up the trail as I hiked down; families, couples, and groups. Many gawked at my ice ax. People were huffing and puffing as they came up that easy trail, and I felt proud of the accomplishment I had just done. I was physically exhausted, but I felt light-hearted and pleased as I walked along greeting people, glowing inside about my accomplishment. I gazed up at the incredible neck-bending view of Pyramid through the aspens partway down the trail. I felt like telling people I’d been up there, but I refrained.

I stopped at a pond above Maroon Lake and wetted down my shirt and splashed water on my legs to cool off. At the bridge I paused to watch a mass of white bubbles foaming in the roaring water. I admired countless gorgeous flowers along the trail, and cast several glances back at the magnificent Bells at the head of the valley. What a great day to be alive! Here I was on a beautiful summer afternoon in one of the most magnificent spots in America!

I reached the trailhead at 2 p.m., promptly drank a quart and a half of water, changed my clothes, took one last look at this beautiful place, and left. Within an hour, thunderstorms piled up, and it rained off and on on my drive home, where I arrived about 7 p.m.

How difficult was Pyramid Peak? It was a tough one, indeed. It easily ranks somewhere among the hardest six or seven 14ers, rivaling the difficult Maroon Bells across the valley, with similar rock and steepness.  At any rate, I was glad to get this challenging peak behind me, and I was not eager to return to it any time soon.

Back to home page