North Maroon Peak

July 30, 2022 / 14,022’

RT STATS: TOTAL TIME - 11 HR & 45 MIN, 8.90 MILES, AND 4,770’ ELEVATION GAIN

TIME STATS: 6 HR & 26 MIN TO SUMMIT, 23 MIN AT SUMMIT, 4 HR & 56 MIN BACK TO TH

RATING (HOW MUCH I LIKED THE HIKE): 5/10

North Maroon Peak….my 55th Colorado 14er! What 3 Colorado 14ers remain? Little Bear, North Eolus, and Eolus. Anyways, to pick back up, after I hiked Wheeler Peak (New Mexico High Point) on July 28th, my dad and I drove back up to Colorado. We went up to Leadville and hit the classic spots (Turquoise Lake, Downtown, and High Mountain Pies).

The next morning, we drove up to Glenwood Springs, where we spent the day! We walked on a nice paved trail there and walked around the Glenwood Springs High School track…I think it is the coolest track I have ever been on! We also walked around downtown Glenwood Springs and, really, were just resting for the next (big) day. Frankly, I was pretty nervous about the weather forecast that kept switching. It was showing showers and thunderstorms somewhat early, which I wasn’t happy about. Throughout the day, we were discussing the times at which we thought we should start. Really, we were trying to not reach the 1st gully before sunrise/it was light enough out (if we did, we, of course, would’ve just waited). Up until that spot, we determined it would be fine to hike in the dark (with a headlamp, of course).

What classic spot did we hit up for an early dinner? La Brava Trattoria. We ate here before Capitol Peak and Pyramid Peak….it is a grand spot. I ordered chicken parmesan, mixed vegetables, and ate a lot of bread. Clean Plate Club….of course, the waiter made a comment about this :). Anyways, I went to sleep around 7:30 pm because we were waking up at 1:15am the next morning…..Fast forward a few hours and we are on the road to the trailhead at 1:55am. I live for these obnoxiously early mornings :).

We pulled up to the trailhead around 3am and set off at 3:16am. The trailhead is at approximately 9,500’. It took about 2 hours and 25 minutes for it to finally get light enough to not really need the headlamps…cute headlamp selfie below (…I’m joking). This put us around 11,600’ and in the rock glacier…which is a massive talus field. We put our helmets on before we started crossing the rock glacier because, although there is no climbing, it is still easily a place where you could misstep and fall.

Soon enough, we had crossed the rock glacier (around ~11,700’) to get to a nice trail again. We gained about 200-300’ more before beginning up the 1st gully. The sunrise was incredible to witness as well! North Maroon is known for its two gullies, which are steep and have loose rock that can fall.

We gained about 600’ or so in the first gully. This is where the fun part of route-finding begins. I enjoy route finding (most of the time, but it is somewhat stressful). We were on the lefthand side of the first gully the entire time (minus the initial crossing the to the lefthand side at the bottom of the gully as we entered the gully from the righthand side).

Soon enough, we crossed over to the 2nd gully. This involved taking a turn to the left and then crossing ledges to get there. At the 3 hour and 51 minute mark, we had an epic view of the 2nd gully (3rd picture below). The 2nd gully was much more hyped up than the 1st gully. After completing both of the gully, I can’t say I found them to be much different in difficulty. I agree that the 2nd gully is more difficult, but it is not night-and-day difference. Below are pictures of the 2nd gully. We probably were in this gully give or take about the same time as the 1st gully (I did not time it).

Soon enough, we exited the 2nd gully and climbed for a bit until we reached the chimney. It’s funny because descending the chimney was a breeze (I didn’t even notice it was the chimney when we did it), but I was not having it on the ascent. The initial moves of the chimney were not easy (it just wasn't my day/I wasn’t having it, I guess), so we went to the right and skipped the chimney. We climbed up and continued up loose rock until arriving on the precipice where we could see the remaining climb up to the summit. It was about 25 or so minutes from this point until we reached the summit!

6 hours and 26 minutes later, we reached the summit of North Maroon! We stayed up here for 23 minutes before descending. We had the summit to ourselves, but, of course, it was beyond foggy at the top. There was no visibility whatsoever in the direction of Maroon, so my summit shot has a lame, slightly foggy background :(. Honestly, we stayed on the summit longer than I wanted (my fault) because, unless it is an evident bluebird day, I want to get back down to safe territory ASAP in case bad weather rolls in.

On to the descent, we went! Climbing up North Maroon, I was just wondering how hard the descent would be with how STEEP it was. It was, in fact, quite steep, so that added even more caution (is this possible?) than I was already taking on the ascent. I didn’t take many pictures on the descent and I don’t even think that the pictures that I took capture how steep the route we took was. There was one tricky spot above maybe 400’ below the summit where it took us awhile to figure out how to get down, but we got it.

Besides this one instance, the descent wasn’t bad route-finding-wise (since we had ascended it a few hours earlier). I wouldn’t know because I haven’t done the Bells Traverse, but I can’t imagine doing the Bells Traverse (or any of the 4 great traverses) without having either 1) ascended the respective peak before or 2) climbing it with someone that had. In other words, North Maroon is not a peak that I would want to blindly descend without having the prior knowledge of an ascent.

I’m always excited on these climbs to get back down to “safe territory” and “completely safe territory”, which for me were after the 1st gully and after the rock glacier, respectively. After the rock glacier, I took my helmet off, sat down and ate my extra cheddar goldfish, and was thinking “what did I just do?”. This thought became much more vocalized once we got see the views of the Bells again.

As we finally got back to the trail, we were just by ourselves until we began to encounter more and more people. Soon, we could see the Bells again and I’m like “I can't believe I have now climbed both of these….what was I thinking?”. Don’t get me wrong—I have the skillset to climb these peaks; however, this is a thought that always pops back into my head when I’m on safe territory again. LOL at remembering me on the descent on Capitol Peak last year.

We soon got back to Crater Lake where the “iconic” picture of the Bells is usually taken. We got our picture taken and there was a (COMPLETELY OBVIOUS AND EVIDENT) rabid fox walking around. People were getting within 5 feet of it to take pictures—there was literally about 20 people near it “fangirling” about this fox….I don’t understand people.I took some selfies of me as well…can’t you see how excited (and confused) I was about my 55th 14er?!? 11 hours and 45 minutes later, we were back at the TH. About 5 minutes later, we were on our way to DIA.

We drove up through Glenwood Springs and decided not to stop there to eat in case the Glenwood Canyon got closed (this happens when a flood is possible…we didn’t want to risk it). We stopped at Qdoba in Vail and it was great. We then continued on toward DIA. Our flight out was for the next morning (technically…) at 12:36am. I changed into clean clothes at the gas station before the airport (praise) and then we got to the airport. We got Panda Express for dinner at like 10pm—it was pretty good, not gonna lie. After that, we went on to our gate. On the way, I saw a picture of the Maroon Bells, so, of course, I had to take a picture with it.

We just waited by the gate, but I was told to not sleep because “we can’t miss our flight”. Anyways, the flight happens and we get into Charlotte around 5:45am. I am back to my Greenville apartment around 8:30am, shower, and then proceed to sleep for 7.5 hours. I wake up, unpack, make dinner, and eventually go to sleep again. I was tired. This was one of the most fun trips ever!!!!!!