Maroon/North Maroon/Pyramid Combo

[tobiasfunke]

Without doing the full class 5 Maroon/North Maroon traverse, which two of these make the most sense to link together in a day?

[charro callado]

staying on standard routes?

[tobiasfunke]

Keeping it less than class 5.

[rijaca]

Are you up for a BIG DAY?

Go to the route description page for either Pyramid or the Maroons. Scroll down to Interactive map with local routes and peaks.

Look for your self.

[charro callado]

Speaking of only standard routes, Pyramid and N Maroon probably make the most sense but it would require a fairly exceptional level of conditioning and solid clear weather to do both. I can't imagine doing S Maroon in conjunction with anything else other than N Maroon via the traverse; that east slope is truly punishing. So I'd go for N Maroon, then make the call on Pyramid at the turnoff en route to the parking lot.

[tobiasfunke]

How difficult is it to get a parking spot at the overnight lot, particularly on a Friday or Saturday? The forest service describes it as "extremely limited". Anyone have experience for what time that lot generally fills?

[goingup]

How difficult is it to get a parking spot at the overnight lot, particularly on a Friday or Saturday? The forest service describes it as "extremely limited". Anyone have experience for what time that lot generally fills?

It is very hard. We tried on a Saturday night and were shut down hard. People are backpacking the 4 pass loop so they get there early Friday and leave their cars until Sunday. We slept in vehicle at the community college parking lot about 13 miles away.

As well, any combo of those mountains without a traverse is a punishing day. My partner and I initially wanted to do South and North in a day without the traverse. Although we still had physical energy after South we were mentally exhausted and of course weather. Let me know if you do it, that would be rad!

[Mike Shepherd]

It's worth noting that a few people have been able to keep the south to north traverse 4th class by staying below the ridge on the west side. In my own review of trip reports I think I've found 1 report where that was done.
Alternatively, you could go north to south and just rappel all the stuff that you don't want to down climb.
Completely climbing and descending one to go to do another would take a pretty decent physical feat.
Either way pick a great weather day, perhaps early September?

[herdbull]

hmmmm..... this is going to push, what, upwards of 10K of vert gain/loss? Even if you're fast you're going to need a dozen hours of great weather. And these are not the mtns you want to be fast on or even can be fast on. Unless your name is Andrew

On top of not being able to move fast on any of these routes there's really no place to bail. If the cord still had snow you could always bail there. This is something that looks almost doable on paper but once you get in there and lay eyes on these things I think things would be different. All 3 are slow(er) going once above 13K.

If I had to I'd probably attempt N. Maroon, back down, and then Pyramid. Not sure why but after doing these in back to back days I think this is how I would attack it. Are you packing in or going right from the parking lot? If from the parking lot I'd leave around 2:00 am and pray for no rain by noon.

Now all of this goes out the window if your name is Andrew, Brett, Justin....... you get the point. With that said it kind of looks like fun. Let us know how it goes.

As for the parking? Can't help you out. I went in on a Wednesday (July 6th) and found parking at the overnight lot.

[fahixson]

Overnight lot was full Wednesday this week when we got there about 6pm and still full Thursday. We parked in the overflow lot a quarter mile or so down the road.