Hiking Maroon Bells Separately vs traverse

[cindymo]

I hope to finish the 14ers next summer (I have Little Bear, Capitol, Sunlight and the Bells left) and am trying to decide whether to hike the Bells separately vs hiring a guide to do the traverse. I would LOVE to bag both of them in a day, but also have a fear of heights. I have been fine on all the 14ers so far, but also have some hard ones left. For those of you who have hiked these mountains, especially if you have issues with exposure, I am looking for recommendations on which route option makes more sense. I do better with climbing steep rock than I do traversing small exposed ledges or descending steep loose dirt/rock. I've looked at TR photos, but trust experience over photos. Also, if you have guide recommendations, I'm open to suggestions.

[Flyingfish]

I would 100% recommend doing the traverse instead of them separately. The one caveat to that is I would try to find someone who is more confident than you are when you do it. I find that my nerves are less when with someone who is more confident and it has helped me through both the Bells and LB-Blanca. It might also be worth saving them for the end of the summer after you have built up some tolerance for exposure/ technicality.

[Scott P]

The traverse isn't that hard (for an experienced hiker/climber), but the rock isn't great. Routefinding is more challenging than on most of the standard 14er routes. The descent really sucks either way you go. To me that is the worst part.

I'd suggest the traverse based on less descending alone.

As far as being afraid of heights, that would be a problem. There is definitely some exposure on the route, especially if you get off route.

[Ptglhs]

Well if you climb up steep things you're going to eventually have to climb down steep things. I thought The Descent off North maroon was probably the hardest 14er. Going up south was steep and a slog, but not difficult. There is exposure on the Traverse, and some of the rock is pretty crumbling. I guess I would have to ask which you dislike the most. If you really hate exposure then do them individually. If you really hate going down loose steep slopes, then do the Traverse. I went with Aspen expeditions.

[OldTrad]

That traverse is something I would never recommend to someone who has a fear of heights. Bad idea. Sure, you probably *could* do it anyway, but why go up there given the possibility that your fear might overwhelm your confidence and experience?

[DArcyS]

The safest option is to do them separately. I've climbed hundreds of 13ers, and there have been plenty of peaks where I've done them on separate days to avoid a difficult ridge just because this was the safest thing to do. A lack of patience has killed more than one peakbagger as they try to string peaks together.

Now, if you're interested in just climbing, yeah, go for it. But since you admit to having a fear of heights, prudence suggests patience. Good luck!

[DArcyS]

Huh, I was just reading about psychological projection, and I thought, "I just saw some examples of that this evening on 14ers.com."

See #4:

https://lonerwolf.com/psychological-projection/

[ellenmseb]

Personally I had the thought, "Could the traverse be *less* dangerous than doing both separately because you spend less time overall in the Bells?" Probably not, but the contest seemed close to me.

North maroon is really not a pleasant climb and I was extremely grateful not to have ascended it.

Don't hire a guide.
- Don't hire a guide to to save time unless the experience of climbing another mountain is so horrible that you'd spend $575 to avoid it.
- don't do it because you want the experience of having done bells traverse, because you didn't get the experience of building the skills to do it independently.

If you only have Sunlight, Capitol, LB and the Bells left for next summer, and you live in Colorado, it should be pretty easy to finish those in 3 or 4 weekends. You won't be on a super time crunch because of the Bells. Getting to and from sunlight will be a bigger time suck than the Bells.

tl;dr do the traverse without a guide if you're comfortable with it. don't do it to save time.

[nyker]

Cindymo, first off, good work on almost finishing! And good for you for being mindful of the risks in those peaks you mention rather than just taking a cavalier approach and just heading up fingers crossed.

Without knowing you or your skills and fitness, given that you are asking the question, I'd say do them separately, but again I don't know you so take that under consideration.

DArcyS points to a good link, i.e. item #4 on that page.

I'd caution you not to make decisions based on somone else's perspective of whether a route is hard, easy, doable, etc. Everyone has different skill levels, experience and a different willingness to assume risk.
What's a cake walk for one person will be someone else's nightmare and put them at in a higher position of risk. In an extreme example, Alex Honnold did the Northwest face of Half Dome in under 3hrs,
does that mean the average climber should be confident of the same? No.

Of your peaks listed above, loose rock/footing, rockfall, getting off route and fatigue are some of the main dangers on those peaks. "If" you're on the proper route and in good shape, the route finding and way up is not super hard.

So...I'd suggest you either (A) find someone you are comfortable with and get to know them (i.e. not someone you meet for the first time at 4:00am in the trailhead parking lot), who has done these routes before and go together-
this could be an informal guide (i.e. a friend which is not paid) or a formal guide (paid), or (B), work your way up to these routes by doing progressively harder routes until you are comfortable on this terrain/routefinding, etc.

Also try to work to reduce the hazards associated with these mountains where you can. For example, best to do any of these peaks during non-holiday weekdays rather than weekends to avoid crowds
and having people above and below you. Do Little Bear in the Spring snow to help minimize (can't eliminate) rockfall risk. For these routes/mountains, either camp the night before or start early (before 4:00am) to put yourself in position
where by midday/early afternoon you will be down below the dicey sections with worse consequences of mistakes and also below treeline in the event of thunderstorms or weather turning. The the last point, time your
days out for better weather forecasts.

Good luck!

[CaptainSuburbia]

If you have a fear of heights I would do them separately. They're both great climbs so you can't go wrong this way. You'll have 2 awesome days instead of one.

[stoopdude]

I thought The Descent off North maroon was probably the hardest 14er.

Agree with this... North Maroon is the most dangerous and least fun 14er, in my opinion.

[CHWitte]

That traverse is something I would never recommend to someone who has a fear of heights. Bad idea. Sure, you probably *could* do it anyway, but why go up there given the possibility that your fear might overwhelm your confidence and experience?

What he said. Do them separately if you have any fear at all of exposure. Much smarter to put the extra effort in hiking up two mountains than to take a BIG risk on the traverse.