North Maroon Peak

March 2024

I started this winter needing 2 peaks to finish the winter list, I was really hoping conditions would give me a shot after going 0 for 2 on both of them last winter. Was fortunate to have Brad McQueen and John Balciar change plans and join me on Capitol on the first day of winter, but expected I'd be waiting until the end of winter to get a shot at N Maroon. To give myself the best chance at a good window for avalanche and weather conditions, I scheduled a week off work the last week of winter.

The weekend before I was watching weather and the CAIC avalanche forecast like a hawk, we'd gotten a pretty big dump of snow on Friday March 8, so I spent a few days doing relatively easy/safe 13'ers. Saturday and Sunday had great weather forecast, but not great avalanche forecast, the Elks were still orange. Monday the entire state went yellow...except the Elks, which stayed orange. On Sunday when the forecast was released for Tuesday, the Elks went yellow, and I had a bit of hope. The weather forecast for Tuesday wasn't bad either, showing a few inches of new snow overnight Monday night, wind forecast was 20 mph, with a high of 15° at summit of N Maroon. Then the forecast was showing 7" of additional snow on Tuesday night, leaving Monday night into Tuesday as my best shot. I didn't have great confidence with conditions only being yellow for 1 day, but was willing to at least give it a shot.

I packed up my big bag and left Salida around 4pm.

Did my normal routine of Village Inn skillet and pancakes in Glenwood Springs on the way.

I parked at the winter parking area around 9pm, it's about 2/3 of a mile from the trailhead. Spent a half hour or so getting my gear on and mentally preparing for a long night. Temp was relatively warm, car showed 33°.

I put my snowshoes on at the trailhead and started my journey. I was making decent time, with the relatively warm temperature I was sweating pretty good, even in just a T shirt and long sleeve shirt.

It started snowing around 11pm, first time lasted maybe 90 minutes, then snowed again later in the night for a few hours. Didn't really bother me much, but had a few small ice clumps in my hair from it. Only took a few pictures in the darkness.

My route finding was much better this trip than on last year's attempt and the snow was more consolidated as well, both factors contributed to me reaching the basin near treeline about 2 hours faster than last year. The downside was that I reached the base of Gunsight couloir before sunrise. I sent a message to my SAR crew that I was going to hang out for a bit until the sun came up.

Once there was enough daylight that my headlamp became ineffective I started up Gunsight Couloir.

The snow felt pretty good in the couloir, fortunately. I wouldn't call it bulletproof, but when I was sinking, I wasn't sinking much, I used snowshoes to get up, crampons to get down. I don't know what the angle of steepness is but it definitely felt less steep than Trigger Finger or the Bell Cord.

I didn't feel like I was making great time up the couloir, I was getting 60-80 steps in between breathers. It's not a terribly long couloir though, thankfully. When I reached the top I took a break to switch into crampons.

I was excited to finally be out of snowshoes, but nervous because I didn't really know how to navigate around Gunsight Tower, and had read from other reports that it's not easy. When I first started across towards the tower and in the direction of N Maroon I was descending a bit until I hit a dead end and needed to go up. After gaining some elevation I started to see what I assumed was the way across the tower. The first sketchy section didn't look too bad, but I was plunging axe with each step nonetheless.

I then rounded the corner and saw what would be the crux of the day.

The good news was that I could clearly see this was the way. Drop any lower and I'd still be dealing with hella steep snow, and I could see that the end of the tower was right there.

I said a prayer or 4 and started across. My technique was to face in, plunge axe as far as I could, and kick front point in as hard was I could, which was generally about halfway. The snow felt stable, and while this is among the sketchiest things I've ever done on a mountain, I never felt like I was in danger of falling.

After the crux I was at the top of Trigger Finger Couloir, which runs down the opposite side of the mountain. I was now feeling good, as the remaining route to summit was one that I had done before, in May of 2022. It's not an easy route, and there was more snow than in May of 2022, but I at least had some familiarity with it. I didn't take many pictures, wish I had, but there are a few challenging moves needed on this stretch to reach summit. Weather was relatively good, there was an occasional wind gust, but the 20 mph wind forecast felt spot on. There were 2 places on the ridge where I had to move to the north side of the ridge and sluff through deep powdery snow, but nothing on the ridge felt particularly hard or dangerous.

When I finally reached the point where I could see the summit, I started crying. I couldn't believe I was about to accomplish this. I'm not terribly emotional, I cried when I lost my cats, I cried when my mom had a stroke, but this is the first time I've cried on a mountain. It was a great, happy cry that I repeated when I reached the summit a few minutes later.

Reached summit in 12 hours and 45 minutes from start. It was a bit cloudy at first, mostly off towards S Maroon and Pyramid. I spent a half hour or so at summit chatting with my SAR crew, taking pictures and enjoying some more peanut butter eggs. Just as I was getting ready to pack up the clouds cleared a bit for some better pictures.

After getting plenty of summit shots it was time to start making my way down. Wasn't difficult to retrace my steps as most of them were in snow.

Soon enough I was back at the crux.

After repeating the same maneuver that got me across the first pass, I felt a huge weight of relief, now all I had left for danger was getting down the couloir, which wasn't nearly as terrifying as what I had just strafed across.

When I made it back to the couloir I put my snowshoes on my pack, finished off my 4th bottle of Powerade and started down.

Once I was safely down from Gunsight, I did my last wardrobe adjustment of the day, it was pretty warm out. Snowshoes went back on, went back down to 2 layers, put a little sunscreen on, and messaged my SAR crew that I was unlikely to die today. Now I just had a 12-13 mile walk to get back to the car. My tracks were mostly blown away until I was a bit into treeline. I was glad to be on my way, and looking forward to getting some pictures of the basin now that I had daylight.

Return trip was mostly uneventful, and took forever, as expected. I started really feeling tired and worn out around the time I was back rejoining the Snowmass Creek trail, which is still 8-9 miles to go. Hadn't had much postholing until this point, it was a pretty warm day. At least my tracks were easy to find for the most part.

Made it back to the car before dark, ready to down a bunch of Diet Mt. Dew on the 4 hour drive home, hoping I wouldn't have to pull over for a nap along the way.

This trip was an incredibly memorable way to finish off a 6 year journey of seeing Colorado's highest points in the best season.

Thanks for reading.