14er member PaulMillar and I set out to climb Pyramid Pk. on Wednesday, July 10. Following is a summary of our adventure which is intended to provide information about the extent of snow cover still in the mountains on the extraordinary year.

We set out from the Maroon Peaks trailhead at about 6:30 a.m. The weather was forecast to be perfect, with 0% chance of showers, and it did turn out to be ideal. Calm and clear all day.

We made good time to the Pyramid trail, getting there at around 7:00 a.m. This trail is well marked with a cairn that is about 4 feet high and it is a well maintained trail. However, it is possible to walk past it. If you get to where you can see Crater Lake, you have gone too far. There is some obvious avalanche debris around the main trail just past the turn for Pyramid. The avalanche debris across the Pyramid trail is not too sever, and begins about 15 minutes up the trail. As of this date, there was one section with trees across the trail that were easily climbed over and two sections where the trail was obscured such that a detour around was necessary. None of this was too bad and the time off the trail was just a few minutes.

The trail up to the amphitheater is really a nice piece of work. Some sections include a virtual staircase built by the crew. The trail ends at the lower amphitheater and is well marked by two towing cairns about 7 feet tall. These are good landmarks and are essential for easily finding the trail upon exiting the amphitheater at the end of the day.

The snow starts almost immediately after getting into the amphitheater. It was very firm and obviously still freezing overnight.

It was easy enough to hike up to the upper amphitheater without crampons. But the snow was more of an icy consistency and finding footholds and depressions was necessary. The climb from the amphitheater to the saddle at 13,000' was almost entirely on snow.

We donned crampons at the base of the gullies and had them on for most of the rest of the climb, taking them off only for the last 300' vertical to the summit, where it was possible to scramble on rock.

It was close to 10:00 a.m. by the time we hit the saddle. Looking ahead we could see that the rest of the day would be interesting.

From the ridge you have an excellent view of the Maroon Bells along with Snowmass and Capitol. The amount of snow holding on the East Slopes of Snowmass is incredible.

The standard route on Pyramid drops off the ridge to the left side and traverses to the base of the "green wall". Because of the snow, we found it easier and more expedient to travel closer to the crest of the ridge all the way to the top of the green wall. There is a small saddle just before that spot which gives a fantastic close up view of the N Face of Pyramid. There seemed to be a pretty clear path of least resistance. Finding a route that worked did take some back and forth, but generally there was not a lot of time lost in figuring things out.

Care had to be taken in places where we transitioned from snow to rock and back. There were some slick icy patches and some soft unconsolidated snow where we each punched through waist deep once or twice.

After about 2 hours on the traverse from the 13,000' saddle we gained the final summit ridge.

We lounged around enjoying the warm, windless day for 30 minutes or so before heading down at around 12:45 p.m.

The snow on the way back had softened considerably and we did not put crampons back on for the rest of the day. It did seem at times like the descent was more challenging than the ascent.

We found ourselves back at the saddle at 13,000' by 2:30 p.m. There was no trace of our boot prints from the morning, they having melted out already. It was funny because it was not obvious which gully we had come up from. After sorting that out we started down. The snow has softened, but still presented a challenge. It was possible to heel step, but only a couple inches into the snowpack before hitting ice. It was a little sketchy, but not hard enough to put crampons back on. Paul preferred finding a route on the rock to bypass as much of the snow as possible. It was a bit contrived, but did turn out to be possible to avoid most of the snow from 13,000' down to the Amphitheater.

We were back in the parking lot a little after 5:00 p.m. making just about an 11 hour effort for the day.

This mountain demands some respect.