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Maroon Peak was a great day to climb! A celebration even! Climber Dax was celebrating his birthday. A married couple of 10 years were both finishing their 14er list together, even brought the champagne! 90% of those that summited today did the traverse to North Maroon. It was tempting to join them but I did leave gear back at the ridge and have already completed North Maroon last year with some friends.
Turn off Maroon Creek Trail here to the right for the South Ridge of Maroon Peak. Even in the dark and not fully paying attention I did not miss this.
Bright moon. Didn't even use the headlamp.
Following the full moon up the slope of suck. This slope hurts the feet on the decline and is the only area today where rock fall was an issue. A small issue though no big deal. I did take one to the ankle which left a bruise.
Looking back at the slope and the sunrise
Looking back up the slope
Getting higher up the slope. This part of the route did take me the longest and most energy.
Gain the ridge here and take it a short distance to the fun part.
The fun part!
Start with climbing the solid chimney. This is looking down.
This is the start of the chimney looking up.
After the chimney its pretty easy to follow the ledges to the first gully from cairns and faint trail sections.
Photo looking at the ledges after the first and second gully.
Following the ledges to the robot rock. He came up quicker than I thought and was easy to get too.
Looking down the large gully after the traversing some ledges from the robot rock.
Looking down. Loose large rocks are easily avoidable but if you do touch them they can go easy.
Looking up the large gully.
After that all my photos have other climbers in them so wont post them. But once you hit top of large gully you take the left over some ledges and then follow cairns or even free climb and pick your own line to reach the south ridge and then hop up to the summit. North Maroon from the summit.
Zoomed in Snowmass and Capitol
Looking down at the Bells Travers. Doesn't look too bad from Maroon. Looks worse from North Maroon if I remember right. Im suprised how many did the travers but it did allow me to have the whole mountain to myself on the down climb
Pyramid
Looking back down at the route. Crater Lake and Maroon Lake below.
Going down the ledges looks like this most of the time. Cairns were much more visible going down than up. Don't trip over your own feet. I almost did and that would have been a nasty injury for such a simple screw up. Otherwise it was fun and easy just a little tedious. It took me 1 hour to go up from the start of the ridge and it took the exact same 1 hour down. Total hike was 9 hours total including all breaks and an hour on the summit.
Going back down you can see the cairns clearly making sure you get on the correct ledges and enter and exit the gullies in the correct spots.
Going back own the large gully. The exit is by the large bright rock near middle of photo.
On some ledges looking at the south ridge way back.
Going down second gully briefly and then traversing a solid well cairned ledge to the first gully. As other climbers have posted wearing micro spikes help them in these areas I am here to say micro spikes do not help me and even hinder me climbing on dirt and scree. To each his own but I felt no benefits in speed or balance. More of a nuisance to carry and take on and off multiple times.
Ledge from gully two to gully one
Looking down gully one.
Robot rock gets his close up. He is huge.
Ledges and cairns and a great view going down with the mountain to myself.
Looking back up gully one.
Cairns even on the corners for you. Hard to miss.
Viewing the end of the south ridge
One last look at the fun part of the climb. Again for me it took one hour up and one hour down from here.
Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
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