Maroon Bells - Aspen Trip

Next you go across a small green tundra ridge and approach the "Rock Glacier" (talk about in all the trail guide books). Cairns clearly mark the path across the glacier and to the pivotal traverse into the first gully/terrace steps up North Maroon. Toward the top of the gully you have a choice of going to the south or left that traverses over to another gully and up to North's ridge (this might be easier), or going right to North's ridge and doing a short class 4 move up one of the bell cord and continuing to follow the ridge. We decided to follow Gerry Roach's book and head to the ridge. Once on top of the bell cord you end up on top of the gully that was describe as the first choice above.

You traverse the top of this gully to the south and an area that cliffs out. With a cliff edge to the south you turn back to the right to do a class 4 move up a bell cord. The move up this cord and to the south along a narrow ledge is probably the most difficult part of the climb. Once you go around this ledge and carefully avoid the bad rock (which is hard because this mountain contains so much of it) you continue up the ridge line following cairns to the top.

Traverse from North Maroon Peak to Maroon Peak
This is where things get fun, you get your first chance to descend the nasty rock of the Bells. Off the back side of North a trail leads steeply down to the top of the traverse. Cairns clearly mark the trail across the traverse. Follow the trail along the top of  the traverse and sometime along the back side or west side of the ridge. The first repel area comes about half way between the two peaks and already has some webbing setup (and two carabineers that we left, unless they have now been added to someone else's collection...thieves). This repel is not too bad, I down climbed the first part but then took advantage of the rope we brought, and repelled the second part of this first repel area. After retrieving the rope we headed back around the ridge in line with the Maroon Peak; the repel is off the west side of the ridge.  The next repel is about 100yds from the previous repel when walking towards Maroon Peak. 

The second repel just like the first repel could have been down climbed...but hey we packed the 10lb rope up North, we must at least get some use out of it. After this point you again continue down the ridge and down climb into a ravine (what a bummer on the elevation loss). On the other side you start your way up Maroon Peak The trail here is hard to follow; it starts to west and then wraps around to the east side. We missed the wrap back to the east part, but from the signs of foot prints we where not the first to have a problem with the part of the trail. We ended up climbing a up a ravine/rock bowling alley. Once back on top of the ridge the trail heads around to the east and directly in line with the top of the peak. Climb the front side of Maroon to the summit.

Maroon Peak
Getting down from Maroon Peak leads to new challenges in route finding. It always seems easier to follow a trail up then to find it on the way down. The trail follows the ridge line off of Maroon to the south, then descends to the west a ways. While descending always try to keep an eye to the south and the many finger gorges (Think of a mountain that is a cone made with an ellipse at the base. Take your fingers and brush down one of the sides. When your finger brush down the side of the mountain, ridges are formed between each finger. This is what the back side of Maroon peak looks like.).  The traverse to the south dips into the mountain the then back out to ridges. Always make sure to stay high enough to reach the next ridge to the south. Each ridge to the south seemed to have many cairns on it indicating the part of the ridge where the traverse continues along. After some tricky route finding and traversing you make it to a saddle that is part of the main ridge of Maroon Peak.

The saddle is fairly well marked. The trail from here runs down a gully on the East side of the ridge down to West Maroon Creek Trail. Down climbing from this ridge is straight forward but very punishing with loose rock and dirt, and did I mention NO SWITCHBACKS. After you mash all your toes into the front of your boots or stretch out all the tendons in your knees, during the 3000ft. descent, you reach the somewhat level Trail of West Maroon Creek. Now it is just an easy hike back to the parking lot...although this did not seem so easy after having the energy drained from my legs during the previous 10hours of climbing.

COLD BEER, COLD BEER, COLD BEER.