THUNDER PYRAMID
13,932'
July 28, 2005
By Tim Briese
I drove to Snowmass Village the evening before the climb to meet Brian and Jason at the Wildwood Lodge, where we stayed that night. We planned to climb four difficult centennial 13ers over the next four days, Thunder Pyramid, Gladstone, Dallas, and Teakettle. It was a daunting challenge that I had been looking forward to with excitement as well as a little trepidation for several months.
Thunder Pyramid is a rugged summit composed of loose, rotten rock located about a half mile south of the 14er Pyramid Peak.. I was uneasy about climbing this one, for I knew well the dangers of climbing here from my previous climbs of Pyramid and the nearby Maroon Bells. The climb turned out to be a little easier and safer than I expected, though.
We rose early the next morning and drove to the Maroon Lake Trailhead in my truck. A couple of other climbing parties were milling about in the dark preparing to embark on climbs as well. We hit the trail at 4:15 and briskly strode up the trail toward Crater Lake with our headlamps. I was grateful to see a star-filled sky, because good weather was imperative for our rugged climb today. After hiking a mile and a half we went left at a trail junction and continued hiking nearly two more miles along the west side of West Maroon Creek, to a point where the trail crosses to the east side of the creek. The trail approach was now over, and a steep bushwhack up the slopes to the east lay before us. We had timed our departure to reach this point at first light, at about 6 a.m., because headlamps would no longer suffice for the rough route ahead.
We found a convenient snow bridge from a still-melting avalanche on which to cross the creek, and immediately began thrashing steeply uphill through the woods toward the northeast, following Roach=s instructions. There was no trail here that we could see, which made this stretch a bit unpleasant and tedious. We presently came to a waterfall in a drainage that flowed down from the southeast, at about 10,800', and determined that we should turn to the right and climb up the drainage. After deciding that the terrain was too steep along its right side we crossed another snow bridge and bushwhacked up the left side of the drainage. A very faint climber=s trail was occasionally visible. We worked our way up the drainage until we came to a relatively gentle grassy area at 11,700', where we left the drainage and turned to the east and began to engage Thunder Pyramid=s steep western flank.
High above we could see the white gully which is the key to the route, and we headed upward toward it. We worked our way up through a cliff band on grassy slopes and climbed into the lower end of the steep gully. The footing was at first very loose on broken maroon-colored talus and scree, but along the left edge of the white gully we found a ridge of light colored rock that was much more solid, and we rapidly progressed upward several hundred feet on this better material. We paused often to gaze across the valley at increasingly impressive views of the Maroon Bells.
At 13,400' we reached the upper end of the white gully and were confronted with steep talus and cliffs above, so we crossed to the south side of the gully and climbed out of it up to the southeast toward the ridge above, on steep, loose, blocky talus. We climbed with great care up this slope, spreading apart to avoid knocking rocks on each other. The 400 foot climb from the top of the gully up to the ridge was by far the most dangerous part of the climb. It was necessary to carefully test each hold in order to avoid knocking loose blocks onto ourselves or anyone below. Helmets were a must for this part of the climb.
We were greeted by bright sunshine when we topped out on the crest of the ridge. From this point it was an easy scamper a hundred yards north along the crest of the ridge to the airy summit, where we arrived at 10 a.m. We sat on top for 45 minutes enjoying the gorgeous views surrounding us on this beautiful sunny morning. Pyramid Peak, the Bells, Capitol, and Snowmass were spectacular from this vantage point. It was rather surprising to find that we were the first climbers to sign the summit register this year. We noted, too, that only about two dozen had signed in during the entire previous year, so needless to say we were quite shocked to see another pair of climbers approaching from below. One of them waited a few hundred feet below the summit while the other climbed on up to join us on top. He turned out to be none other than Kane Engelbert, a familiar name from 14erWorld and SummitPost. He saw our names that we had just written in the register and recognized them from our websites, and thus a lively conversation ensued.
After visiting for a while we left the summit to Kane and began our descent. We retraced our steps down the ridge and began to go down the steep talus slope below. Brian and I stayed on about the same route that we had come up on, while Jason tried a different route to the left. We proceeded very cautiously on the precariously loose rock. Kane soon began to descend as well, but prudently waited at a point above until we were out of harm=s way. Jason, meanwhile, slid down on scree and very rapidly descended to a point several hundred feet below us. Once we reached the solid white rock and nearby grass we progressed quickly downward to the gentle grassy area in the drainage below Thunder Pyramid=s west face. We all lounged around on the pleasant grass chatting for a while, soaking up the magnificent scenery around us. Remembering, however, that we had a long drive to Ridgway awaiting us yet that evening, we soon decided that we had better get going.
Jason wanted to try a direct descent to the valley below, and despite misgivings about getting cliffed out in this steep and rugged terrain, Brian and I followed as he deftly picked out a workable route that took us directly down. We met a large party of young backpackers when we returned to the trail in the valley and exchanged greetings with them. We rapidly scooted back down the fine Maroon Creek Trail in the pleasant afternoon sunshine, meeting many casual tourist hikers along the way.
At 3:15 we returned to the trailhead at Maroon Lake, completing the 10 mile, 4400' climb in about 11 hours. I gave Brian and Jason a ride to their vehicles at a carpool lot along Highway 82 where we had left them in the morning, and we each began the long 175 mile drive to Ridgway, which would serve as the base for our climbs over the next three days.
