Pyramid has been on my list for a while. I attempted it last summer with a buddy from out of town, but rain, some altitude sickness on his part (not his fault!), and some route-finding errors on my part made us turn around. I thought we got pretty significantly off route close to the start of the green rock section. We were climbing some (what I considered at the time to be) pretty gnarly class 4, and he was getting dizzy from the altitude. Clouds rolling in and a milk gallon sized rock that nearly hit me in the face made the decision to turn around pretty easy.

Looking back though, I think I just wasn't really prepared to be comfortable climbing up Class 4 terrain. I do think we were off-route, but I also have never really done a lot of technical climbing, and I thought that could make a big difference in my comfort level.

This year was going to be different. I started hitting the climbing gym around April, with my daughter. I worked up to being pretty comfortable on 5.8/5.9, and while I realized this is MEGA overtraining for any Colorado 14er, it really paid dividends... as we will see.

I decided not to camp, and just booked a room at the Pokolodi lodge in Aspen (great and fairly priced place to stay, btw). This place is right across from the Snowmass Mall, which has a lot of good bars and restaurants (the oyster place, in particular, is legit). It's about 30 minutes from the trailhead, but it's a really comfortable place to spend the night and get some decent sleep.

I booked a midnight to midnight pass about a month ago (man these things are hard to get, definitely book a couple around the time you want to go a month or two in advance- https://aspenchamber.org/plan-trip/trip-highlights/maroon-bells/reservations). You have to park before 8AM and leave prior to midnight, but that shouldn't be much of a factor if you're getting there early enough to climb a 14er.

Was planning on waking up around 5, but my body was ready to go by 4, so I packed up and left the lodge by 4:30. Was on the trail by 5:15. This was a really good time to start (at least this time of year) because there was just enough sunlight to be able to see the trail without a headlamp.

The trail is well documented in other places. The Pyramid cutoff was exactly 1.3 miles in, according to my GPS. A mile or two of zig-zagging and lots of elevation gain and you'll be at the boulder field.

You might think you can just walk anywhere and go direct to the gully, and you can, but there actually IS a trail here. You can feel when you're on it or close to it, because the rocks will shift and move a lot less, since it's been consolidated a bit by people walking on it. On the way back, I could tell I was on a section that wasn't well traveled because every f**cking rock moved and slid when I stepped on it. Just an FYI, as it's really tempting to take shortcuts.

Also, staying roughly on the trail will prevent you from having to go up and down over some of the hills in here, as there is quite a bit of undulating terrain if you go off course.

The gully - everyone's favorite part. It's not too bad going up - approach shoes coupled with some hands here and there was all the grip I needed. It's a lot of elevation gain though.

One note about this section and the rest of the climb - the goats can be really obnoxious here. In the gully and on the climb I had one that situated himself above me and kicked a bunch of rocks down at me. Definitely can be hazardous if you're not careful.

I reached the top of the gully 2 hours and 10 minutes after I left the trailhead.

The rest of the route is really well described on the 14ers route description, but I will say this. I had the northeast ridge GPX file loaded in Gaia (the one from the 14ers route description), and while normally I follow these thing with a grain of salt since you can see how sporadic the location updates are, staying exactly on the red line kept me in class 3 pretty much the entire route up.

Getting to the start of the green rock section, I was surprised at how solid and grippy the rock was. Definitely always test your holds before you put your weight on them, but this section is just a fun section of solid class 3. Again, stay exactly on the red line in Gaia and you'll see where you need to turn left to exit the green rock section.

There were some climbers above me who kept going up the green rock past the turnoff, and they did summit, so I suppose you can choose your own adventure if you want.

The beginning of the green rock section. Solid where it needs to be, but still some loose screw that you should be mindful of.

Higher up on the green rock. A little looser up here, but still solid enough.

The left turn off of the green rock section. Home stretch.

Probably the only section I felt might be class 4 was some of the "ridges" about 100 feet from the summit. There are several 5 to 6 foot vertical sections that are super solid and fun to climb, You might be able to explore a bit and make it easier, but I thought these areas were really enjoyable. I agree with what others have said, it might be possible to keep the whole climb at class 3, but realistically you're probably going to get into some tougher climbing sooner or later, so the class 4 rating feels right.

Closer to the summit, the difficulty levels off and becomes easy class 3.

Summit at 2 hours and 38 minutes. About 30 minutes from the top of the gully to the top of the mountain.

I can't express how amazing the view is from the top of Pyramid. Especially having just summited Snowmass a few months prior, it was gnarly imagining seeing my little headlamp from here, crawling up that snowfield at 2AM.

I think the overall theme of my TR is that if you've ever gotten the heeby-jeebies on one of the harder 14ers in the state, getting some technical climbing experience can REALLY help. I felt so much more comfortable on the Class 3+ sections after training in the gym.

Pyramid is definitely one of my favorite 14ers now, probably tied with the Needle. The risk of loose rock is definitely a concern, but the overall climb is fun and I think the Class 4 rating makes it look more difficult on paper than it really is.