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Peak(s):  North Maroon Peak  -  14,022 feet
Date Posted:  05/21/2009
Date Climbed:   06/02/2003
Author:  Easy Rider
 Northwest & Northeast Ridges ‘03   

6/2/2003




It was $10 to drive up the Maroon Creek road. The Bells are truly amazing mountains, and never fail to put a stone in the pit of my stomach. I walked to crater lake sans snowboard. It was going fast this year. I left the Buckskin Pass trail, and crossed Minnehaha Creek on a dirty debris field. It was steep messy root climbing from the cairn I found, but still accessed the upper basin. I camped there for the night.

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A group of four passed by in the morning going for the northeast ridge and then the traverse. I entered the amphitheater below the north face, crossed a bergschrund, and climbed the slot on the far right side of the face to the first bench. A wide shady couloir to North Maroon's west ridge revealed itself. This was an excellent climb, being less exposed to rockfall.

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The northwest ridge to the summit was mostly dry on a path to the right, below the ridge crest. Working back to the ridge, there were views of the Stamberger ledges.

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From the top, the valleys were already green. Snowmass looked like the last possibility for a good run on these 14ers. The group of four tagged the summit, and headed for the traverse to South Maroon. I headed down the northeast ridge route, taking care not to disturb any rocks down on the east side. I waited for quite awhile for a group to clear it from a perch out of the gully. Then entered and scrambled down to a cairned bench on the left, and crossed the snowfield to retrieve camp.

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Scott Hagen called from Boulder a week later to say he had skied the north face a couple of weeks prior to that after working a full shift at the Flagstaff in Boulder.



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