Hike Maroon Peak White River National Forest, CO

Sep 10, 2018 — The Maroon Bells are super gorgeous from below, and stunning from atop, but crumbly and annoying in between. My first of the peaks was Pyramid Peak a couple years ago, and I wanted to return to do more in this absurdly scenic area.

From Maroon Lake, head to Crater Lake and follow the West Maroon Trail that hugs Crater Lake's west bank before slowly ascending up the canyon. The trail ascends for a bit, nice views north toward Maroon Lake, before descending to West Maroon Creek. Keep your eyes peeled for a short rock wall and a cairn on the right, marking the turn-off for the Maroon Peak approach. The trail ascends steeply up Maroon Peak's east face for a long time, and is easy to follow, up the south ridge of the peak.

The "fun" begins here, once you get to the ridge. A social trail and cairns mark the way all the way to the summit. However, if you find yourself doing anything scary on crumbly rock and there aren't cairns nearby, definitely backtrack and find the true route. People die in the "deadly bells" because of the terribly quality of the rock, and I can see how easy it would be to lose track of the intended route.

Anyway, from the southernmost section of the ridge, you can see the ridgeline to the true Maroon Peak summit, what you'd assume would be the route. The trail instead pretty much avoids the true ridge, opting to instead follow the west side, so don't be alarmed like I was when you find yourself descending occasionally. A couple of short Class 3 moves along the initial ridgeline leads you to start descending along the west side for a bit, and into a short and awful gully. Take this gully about a hundred feet and keep looking to the left, where the route leaves the gully and follows the west side again. Don't miss this turn-out.

Follow the trail on the west face some more until you reach another awful gully, this one much longer and gaining a fair amount of elevation. From the top of this gully, you can try to locate a route to the summit, but there's so much loose rock everywhere that it all blends together. I took one cairned route up to the summit, and a different one back down. Just make sure to stay on Class 2+ stuff, and nothing harder.

From the Maroon Peak summit, you can see Pyramid Peak and Maroon Lake, as well as the Class 5 ridge to North Maroon Peak. I was super tempted, but the rock quality was so poor on the ascent and I could imagine it being similar along the ridge, plus I was alone and had never done a Class 5 ridgeline before, so I opted to come back (maybe) another time. North Maroon isn't an official 14er, and the route seems dangerous. We'll see.