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Since there are not a lot of recent Pyramid trip reports, perhaps a few current notes would be helpful:
We weren't sure if we needed an ice ax, so we brought one just in case, as did others. We did not need one. The glacier in the amphitheater was soft enough, even early in the morning, that poles were perfectly adequate. The 1,000' gully climb out of the amphitheater to the first saddle was snow free (well, until our down climb when it was filled with the sleet falling on us!).
We had no trouble finding the cairn First Pyramid Trail Fork (note wood in Cairn) marking the Pyramid trail split off from the main Crater Lake trail based on the route description, but we were surprised at how faint much of the trail was winding up through the forest. On our way back, we somehow ended up on a fork going to Crater Lake, which was also marked by a prominent cairn 2nd Pyramid Trail Fork (closer to Crater Lk) at the main Crater Lake trail. So, if you are hiking up from the parking lot and miss the first exit, there is a second one within about a 1/4 mile that will get you there.
Speaking of missing the trail, and backing up to the beginning, there are some options to take the wrong fork of the main trail on the far side of Maroon Lake, especially hiking up in the dark. We almost took the wrong trail a couple of times, even though we had been up the trail to climb Maroon a couple of years before. I believe the correct choice in each case was - go right.
We started at 4:10 AM, and summited about 9:45, maintaining a slow steady pace. Round trip was 10 hours, spending only a few minutes on the summit due to intimidating clouds moving in. However, a guy coming down said he made it to the top in 3 hours. There were about 17 people climbing it on the Saturday following the 4th of July weekend.
Within a few hundred feet of the summit, we took the cairned trail up on the ridge to the right, which proved to be much nicer than scrambling up the loose south face, going both up and down, according to a party of three who joined us for the return trip.
Our overall feeling - the peak deserves its difficult rating. There are many opportunities to seriously hurt yourself up there. We felt a great sense of accomplishment afterwards during much of the hike back to the car.
There are two photos below of the section of the legge where you need to jump across, or climb around.
Camping - we set up our pop-up camper in the East Maroon Portal parking area. It was very quiet, with only 3 other cars, and two other campers in this expansive area, even though most of the other nearby camping areas were fairly full. We drove up to the trailhead in the morning. Plus, we didn't have any critters bothering us during the night. At other campgrounds, many people have gone so far as to encircle their cars with chicken wire to keep the animals away, which reportedly are prone to chewing on brake lines.
Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
thanks for the update. We are heading up there Tuesday and were wondering how it was. I guess we‘ll leave the ice axes at home!!! Thanks for the tips and I‘ll let you know how it went. Great report!
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