"Lightning Pyramid"

Route: Traverse from Thunder Pyramid
Posted On: 7/13/2025, By: infinitealpine
Info: Info on the traverse is sparse. Staying ridge direct works until you hit a section that would require turning in and down climbing at least 40ft that easily looked like class 5. Ultimately we dropped down the east face to a point where we were level with the saddle but it was very slow moving because the rock quality wasn't great. After the saddle it's an easy ridge climb to the summit. Descending the lightning couloir wasn't fun, it's extremely loose. I saw a comment that says snow in the couloir can be avoided on the side, while technically true, the space between the snow and the rock gets very tight in several spots. There's also several big drops that required me to wedge myself between the snow and wall. There's probably 300-400ft of snow to descend directly or skirt on the side. It would be safer to wait this one out or bring an axe and microspikes. After the snow there's still a lot of loose rock to navigate down and this made for my least favorite descent yet. It took 1.5hrs to fully descend. 

Route: Approach to Lightning Couloir
Posted On: 5/19/2024, By: supranihilest
Info: Bad snow. No overnight freeze and rain yesterday afternoon and evening. No new dusting of snow so that meant rain up high too. Very warm and sweaty approach. Postholing on the trail in snowshoes in the dark. Made it a few hundred feet up the access couloir to the upper basin and we were sinking up to our knees in 18" of slush the whole time. This was at about 4:30am so well before light when everything should have been frozen. Bailed there due to safety concerns, later in the day steep slopes would have been downright dangerous. The Elk need a good freeze before being worth attempting. 

Route: traverse nobo
Posted On: 8/5/2023, By: artemavovk
Info: Obviously summer conditions from 13631 all the way to Pyramid, but if you're headed for Thunder you'll have to follow the ridge as the eastern gully is still holding awkward snow. West side couloirs have no snow. 

Route: Lightning to Shoemaker traverse
Posted On: 6/30/2023, By: blazintoes
Info: Went up Lightnings couloir and ran into HikingTexan so it felt like I was doing something right. The couloir looked thin up top from the Len Shoemaker basin and HT confirmed that. There were deep runnels within. Its ~40 degrees steep. The snow was perfect. The snow stopped at 13,200 and choss was boss all the way to the summit. The trick with the Elks is you can push on the rocks, just dont pull. The weather was fickle and there was a snow squall at 0700 and 1600. I continued to Len Shoemaker. The traverse was pretty gnarly. Some class 5 moves but I had a blast. I was able to find the path of least resistance and route finding was good. Hard to describe the the traverse. The finish up Len Shoemaker was the best part on the best rock. I couldnt enjoy the summit because of approaching weather. From the summit of PT 13.631 back to my car at the lot took 4 hours. I started at 0530, had a weather delay for ~1 hour, summitted at noon, the traverse took 90 minutes and got rained on for about an hour while on the trail back. Total time 14 hours. Long awesome day. 

Route: Lightning bolt couloir
Posted On: 6/5/2023, By: VeraUndertow
Info: Left trail head at maroon lake around 3:30, trail is mostly free of snow except a few very well trenched patches up to Crater lake. Streams were flowing high and the first one has a log bridge slightly west of the main trail. I'm the AM we did not find the log bridge from the avy debris because we hadn't gone far enough up the trail, the best crossing is just after the S Maroon junction, so you can save yourself the cold water wake up. All the lower gullies have snow in them to varying degrees, but a few are starting to peel away from the rocks and create crevasses of sorts, we went up the middle one but the one to the right also looked okay. From here I just followed snow, and occasional rock and grass to the base of the couloir. The overnight freeze was solid so only in small stretches was I able to front point easily, some steps required 3-4 kicks, which meant I might side stepped up where possible. The choke was not really a choke since it was 6 feet wide today. The snow ran out around 13,200 but I noticed a line of snow that ran almost to the summit climbing south from just below snow line in the coulie proper to almost 13,6 where it joined back in to the regular ridge. Otherwise the climb up, was just a gully full of your usual elk rock but not super steep. Once we got to the ridge we were able to climb the last couple hundred feet to the summit on mostly class 2+ rock with a few patches of snow. A great day to be in the elk with beautiful views. Time to summit was around 6 hours, which includes pants off creek crossing and several other stops. From here we traversed to Thunder 

Route: from 13,631
Posted On: 8/20/2022, By: zootloopz
Info: 13,631 to Lightning to Thunder traverse. Maroon creek crossing has logs laid down to facilitate dry feet. Plenty of water running here and up higher in Len shoemaker. Carried 1.4 liters and a water filter in a vest, worked out great. Traverse is loose and spicy. Not as bad as teakettle on looseness but damn close. Lots of bypass options but ridge direct is certainly 4th to low 5th in plenty of places. Test everything, trust nothing. Pretty much descended straight off Thunder. Multiple gullies go on the way down. Terrible descent, but obviously expected. 11 hours RT / 13.4 miles / 5.4K gain (maybe more here, felt like 6k) 13,631 is missing paper but has pens and a metal container. Colorados_mountains packed out the old shitty container that was missing the lid. Lightning needs more paper, and currently has a mechanical pencil. Register container is pretty small but secure. Also another old container that could be packed out here. 

Route: North Ridge
Posted On: 6/7/2021, By: Anima
Info: The snow bridge has melted out. Instead, I used an old Avalanche debris field to cross the river about 200 feet beyond the turn-off for Maroon Peak. Once across the river it is a miserable bushwhack/climb up into the basin. Even with temperatures above freezing all night, the snow was very solid. I climbed a narrow couloir that accesses the saddle between Thunder and Lightning pyramid (Unnamed 13,722'). There were a few sections of alpine ice and the top was melted out. I was happy to have two tools instead of a glacier ax. The ridge is fairly dry. This mountain must be a nightmare without snow. 

Route: Lightning Pyramid Couloir
Posted On: 5/26/2021, By: osprey
Info: The snow bridge over Maroon Creek is intact. All the snow starting at the couloirs leading up into Len Shoemaker Basin and the Lightning Pyramid Couloir itself was very firm and hard in the morning. I used my strap on crampons with my rigid boots and two axes for the entire route. Most of the climb was on firm snow. Very little was on scree/ talus. There are 2-3 false summits after obtaining the saddle at the head of the LP Couloir. Each false summit has a major cornice on the east side. The ridge after the second false summit is very narrow with exposure on east and west sides. The real summit has a small cairn. Sun hit the LP Couloir about 1020 causing some ice balls and some small rocks to greet the climber. I thought LP was a significantly harder ascent than Thunder Pyramid due to the steepness of the LP Couloir. 

Route: LP Couloir
Posted On: 6/20/2020, By: dcruz654
Info: Stream crossing was difficult to find in the dark, I ended up going pretty far and crossing over a snow bridge. On the way back I just took my shoes off and walked through the shallowest point. Route finding is pretty straight forward into the upper basin, gps track is handy (I used usakeller's). Did my best to avoid snow until the base of the couloir up which was at 12,300'. Snow was nice in firm at 6am. It was cupped and textured enough is was basically walking up steep stairs in the bottom section. Choke is the steepest point. Snow peters out around around 13,1000'. Once on the saddle the ridge up is easy class 2/+. Traverse over to thunder wasn't too bad. I mostly opted to traverse forward and right via ledges, occasionally looking back and up to climb in places I could keep it class 3. Definitely did some 4th climbing by choice though. Descended standard/white gulley off thunder. Snow starts at 13,600 and was still firm at 930, but I was able face out the whole way down. I honestly feel that LP-TP was the better way to climb these. Not because of upclimbing the class 4, but because of the top sections of each gulley. Thunder's seemed much better to descend sans snow. Left parking at 3am. Stream crossing at 4:30. Base of lp couloir at 6. Summit of lp 7:45. Summit of thunder 915 Back at car at 1pm for a rt time of 10hrs including breaks. Pics 1.Gaining upper basin 2.choke is narrow but wider than it looks 3.lp register, needs pen. 4.third class stuff en route to thunder 5.on a ledge system looking back to LP 6.pyramid from thunder 7.descent off thunder, red rocks are steep but they go to the snow 8.white gulley snow 9.same 10.red-gps track route (i assume) yellow-my descent, blue-lp couloir 

Route: Gully
Posted On: 6/1/2019, By: cottonmountaineering
Info: This peak is "lightning pyramid" which is right next to thunder pyramid. Left TH at 430, put on skis at crater lake, summit at 830. Contrary to the wildwanderer conditions report, I found the snow to be in nearly perfect climbing condition provided you get down before the sun hits it- sun hits the gully around 945 There is a runnel running up the gully to lightning pyramid, in the runnel it is very secure front pointing. Threre is about 300 vertical feet near a constriction where it makes sense to be in the runnel and you'll have some snow coming down on you if it's windy up higher. Near the constriction there are a few steps of Alpine ice/snice up to 50-55 deg, but for the most part it hovers around 40-45 degrees to the ridge. I found one ice tool to be adequate. Outside of the runnel is featured snow that you can get steps in. There is a step around a yellow rock after you reach the Ridgeline, then it's pretty straight forward to the summit. Overall I felt this climb was similar in character to thunder pyramid except for it was steeper 

Route: Ledge Traverse from Thunder Pyramid
Posted On: 9/30/2018, By: CarpeDM
Info: I went down the gully from the saddle with Thunder. Unless you have good snow conditions, for the love of all that is holy, DO NOT EVER GO DOWN THAT GULLY! No snow or ice on the Thunder white gully route, the traverse to Lightning, or the descent. Also, if you are going up, the baby-food-jar-sized summit register needs a short writing utensil (probably no more than 3-4 inches, unless you also bring a bigger container). I screwed up and dropped the pencil between some rocks. 

Route: Lightning couloir
Posted On: 6/20/2018, By: illusion7il
Info: The couloir is still in where ya need it, then its all skree to the saddle. 

Route: Maroon Lake Approach
Posted On: 5/20/2018, By: BobbyFinn
Info: Flotation not needed. Wore crampons from the creek crossing to creek crossing. Snow in the couloir was very hard on the ascent - couldn't kick steps most places. We used ice axes & ice tools on much of the 1st half of the couloir and were glad we had both. Couloir is melted for the last 100-200 feet of the ascent - loose talus remains. Loose rock on the summit ridge. Get up and down early before the snow gets too soft - was sporty on the descent due to rapidly softening snow. 

Route: Lightning couloir
Posted On: 5/20/2018, By: sdkeil
Info: The couloir was in great shape and continuous to the saddle, although it is starting to get a little thin in places. I would say this line will be in prime condition for only another week, maybe two. The snow was very firm in the morning and softened up nicely on the descent. Others have already talked about the approach and I will echo the comments of supportive snow in the morning and post holing in the afternoon, but leave the snow shoes at home.