Maroon Peak

Route: Bell Cord Couloir
Posted On: 6/13/2025, By: sean23
Info: Some friends and I climbed the Bell Cord this morning. Conditions started out marginal, but the snow improved as we entered the couloir. We began off route south of the main entrance, but this line had more continuous snow to the lake, and we were able to regain the proper route by climbing over an easy grassy rib. There is still a lot of snow in the couloir, and we were able to climb to the saddle. We descended via the standard route. There are several steep and exposed snow traverses currently on the route (photo 3), and by the time we got to them, the snow was sugary. If you go slow, the traverses are manageable, but spring snow gear still seems mandatory. Lastly, there are enough snowfields remaining on the two thousand feet of suck portion of the trail to make for some fun glissades! I'm including some photos of our climb in case they help 

Route: Bell Cord Couloir
Posted On: 6/7/2025, By: WillRobnett
Info: It's good! Scouted lower section on the way to other things and glissaded well. Descend amount of snow still up high. 

Route: view from a watchtower
Posted On: 6/1/2025, By: WillRobnett
Info: 5/25 has a pretty good description. Just adding a few photos from the valley 5/31. 

Route: Bell Cord Couloir
Posted On: 5/25/2025, By: colin j
Info: The Cord is currently pretty spooky. Lots of evidence of wet slides on the apron and significant rockfall littered the couloir. It is also very thin in spots, I counted 5 moats beginning to form throughout. If you go soon I recommend going up and down the garbage chute; the traverse to climbers right has a large moat/bergschrund forming and is a mix of snow and mud. Two splitboarders and I attempted today and bailed around 8:30 am with rapidly softening snow. 

Route: South Ridge
Posted On: 5/5/2025, By: FrankP
Info: Skied Y Couloir on Friday. Took a look at Bell Cord but it was full of junk and decided to pivot. Lots of slough debris in the guts, but it was still soft and unconsolidated which made climbing a little more challenging. All the flanks were in great condition. The upper section on the back was not worth skiing so I dropped my skis on the way to the top. Started on a bike from the gate at 1:15am, but realistically should have started around 12:30. 

Route: Just south of the Y couloir
Posted On: 4/11/2025, By: booger
Info: Biked in from the winter road closure. Stashed bike at approx 9K where snow started covering most of the road. Booted up / skied an east facing couloir just south of Bell Cord / Y (see photo). Got a pretty late start and there was quite a bit of active loose / wet activity, this coolie had some colder snow so decided to ski this. Put in a booter on the ridge to the summit. Overall pretty variable snow, some cold stuff north facing, variable breakable crust / corn / wet snow on other aspects. Didn't see any other tracks up there, but did see two moose. 

Route: lake hike with a view!
Posted On: 3/31/2025, By: WillRobnett
Info: A lot of snow still out there! Photos from hiking the road to Maroon Lake. 

Route: Bell Cord Couloir
Posted On: 12/23/2024, By: illusion7il
Info: Nope! Started at 2:21am at the ranch and made it to the summer TH by 4:20. Had to trench from there and reached the apron by 6:30. While there were good signs of snow consolidation on the approach, when I reached the apron, the snow changed to stiff bulletproof slab. This was the exact slab the CAIC has issued a warning about especially on steep slopes. Unlikely but possible. At this point I was just looking for any reason to turn around. The stiff slab made for excellent traction and I was making great time. No signs of instability. The lower garbage chute looked like it had some ice flow farther up in the choke, but I wasn't planning on going that way anyway. I worked my way up between the cliff bands and was stopped by an yet another ice flow. I then backed off and tried going up and around the cliff bands to the right when I then noticed some weird holes in the snow. Looked down in there and it was a deep crevass covered by a thin layer of snow that could of easily swallowed me up. Never seen that before. Called it. 

Route: Bells Traverse
Posted On: 10/15/2024, By: jarne13
Info: Nearly summer conditions still! Some snow coming down Maroon into the traverse, and a fair amount coming down N. Maroon after the traverse, so dont let your guard down. Snow looks soft but often times is very slippery and hard packed. We brought micro spikes, but never used them. Probably should have put them on in retrospect, but didnt want to stop. 

Route: South Ridge
Posted On: 10/14/2024, By: MidsizeAl
Info: Still summer conditions. I didn't want to post a full trip report, but I marked some important waypoints that the route description mentions since the routefinding can be trickier on this one. I will probably upload this to the GPX library, but here is the CalTopo link: https://caltopo.com/m/LFTQ0V3 The blue GPX track is the one from this site, my recorded track is in red. You'll notice there is a much bigger deviation in my route vs. the 14ers.com route after the broad gully. As others have noted, there are a lot of options to gain the ridge after the gully. I went for it earlier since I was enjoying the scrambling and looking for some more challenging features. If you haven't read daway8's excellent trip report (https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=19652), I found it very useful in preparing for this one. I'll echo his sentiment for using spikes on the 2,800'--they were extremely helpful on the descent. I don't think I slipped on the scree once. Probably not a bad idea to carry spikes on any peak in this range, honestly. Perfect October day, overall. I think Maroon gets a bad rap. It's steep, for sure, but it was not as tough as I was expecting, and was one of my favorite peaks to date. What an absolutely gorgeous place to be! 

Route: South Ridge
Posted On: 10/6/2024, By: JROSKA
Info: Summer conditions. No snow anywhere on the route and no need for microspikes. 

Route: South Ridge
Posted On: 9/29/2024, By: Pcypher
Info: Summer conditions again after the storm. Get it while you can! 

Route: South Ridge
Posted On: 10/1/2024, By: DiamondCutter
Info: Dry conditions on the standard route. The ledges leading to the traverse on the north side of Maroon Peak looked snow covered but manageable. The traverse from the Bell Chord to the top of North Maroon looked completely dry from the summit of Maroon Peak. See North Maroon conditions update for a different story on the N Maroon standard route. 

Route: Bells Traverse
Posted On: 9/16/2024, By: willcubswin
Info: My climbing partner and I climbed the bells traverse yesterday along with a few other parties, including one guy who finished the 14ers yesterday! All of the parties were really helpful and great to have on the route with us yesterday. Conditions were perfect for us yesterday, and we used this incredibly helpful and well-written trip report from jeffh7 for most of our beta: https://www.14ers.com/php14ers/tripreport.php?trip=21822 It did rain on us on the way down, which meant that it snowed on the peaks. I imagine that this will take a day or so to melt off. When we were coming up the last part of North Maroon, we encountered a man coming down who was starting the traverse in reverse. It seemed like he had limited beta on descending the three difficulties, but he continued on anyways. One of the other parties asked if he had a rope for rappelling, which he did not. If this is you (or you know this person), please respond and let us know you made it out okay. We'd really appreciate it! 

Route: South Ridge
Posted On: 7/27/2024, By: oliver303
Info: Full summer conditions. The two snow crossings mentioned in the prior conditions updates are gone. Great wildflowers.