Pyramid / North Maroon access without parking pass?

[ethmasse]

I am hoping to attempt pyramid peak next weekend. I successfully booked a parking pass for a few weeks ago, but we got rained out and could not attempt a summit.

There is zero availability over the next several weeks for parking passes via the aspen chamber (all pass options).

I have seen older threads mentioning parking on the side of the access road with a donation, is this method still acceptable?

Are there any other known workarounds? We aren’t opposed to hiking in if that is an option, but without reservations that option seems limited too.

Thanks!

[ethmasse]

also, I'd happily purchase a pass if anyone has one available that they cannot use! (sep 14th or 15th)

[9patrickmurphy]

Per the aspen chamber website, 10 permits are released 3 days ahead, every day, at 8am. Log on at the right time and you should be able to get one.

[justiner]

Ride a bike.

[RussMcConaha]

Sent you an email

[bdloftin77]

Ride a bike.

Or rent an e-bike!

[jfm3]

It is getting harder to park at the mountain than it is to actually climb the mountain. I ran Four Pass Loop yesterday, starting and ending at the Maroon Lake parking lot. In April 2024, I made vehicle reservations for 3 different dates in July and August. As it ended up, I had to cancel all of them due to weather or being on a different mountain on the same day. Like you, I looked at the vehicle reservation website and saw nothing available, so I said screw it and took the "Dark Bells" approach: just drive to Maroon Lake anyway, red tape be damned. I slept in the car in the day use lot, right in front of the No Overnight Parking sign. The parking lot was quiet all night and nothing happened. I geared up in the morning and went off on the run. No problem, right? Not quite.

In previous years, I've done this same thing and never gotten any kind of warning from the USFS rangers for parking without a permit. The vehicle reservation doesn't require a license plate number, and since the Maroon Creek Road hut is closed before 5 AM (or maybe 6- I always drive up before 5) there's no one to check the reservation for a particular car. When I've used the vehicle reservations, I've never actually shown it to anyone- I just write the number and information on a piece of paper and leave it on the dashboard. Well, it seems they have become wise to the "Dark Bells" method. I got back from the run to find a slip of paper in the door saying I had no evidence of a reservation and/or payment, and that I needed to pay the fee at the road hut. The hut was closed (just after 6 PM) when I drove out, so I used the electronic day pass machine. I paid $10 with a debit card, put that receipt in the fee envelope from the self-pay fee tube that was used way back in 2019 and earlier, and wrote something on the back to explain what I did. They got their $10.

It seems there are 4 options for parking at Maroon Lake:
1. Make a vehicle reservation in April, when they go on sale, for a random date(s) months later, conditions and weather be damned
2. Drive up Maroon Creek Road before the road hut is staffed and use the day pass machine to pay $10 and get a day ticket
3. Drive up Maroon Creek Road before the road hut is staffed and use the pen and paper fee tube to pay $10 and get a day ticket
***I say "before the road hut is staffed" because I'm assuming that, when the road hut is staffed, you would have to show your vehicle reservation. Options 2 and 3 theoretically give you the option to plan your climb around weather and conditions, like any reasonable outdoorsman would do.
4. Wash your hands of the red tape, pay nothing to anyone, drive up Maroon Creek Road when the road hut isn't staffed and accept whatever consequence you face. I doubt they'll tow your car, but you'll probably get a ticket or a payment warning.
***I will also point out that, despite the new existence of the ticket machine and the continued existence of the pen/paper fee tube, there is absolutely no mention of these payment/access methods on the vehicle reservation website.

As someone said above, supposedly there are additional reservations released 3 days ahead of time, but just this morning someone on the 14ers.com Facebook page said the release of these additional reservations is inconsistent, and might have to be manually initiated by someone running the website.

Having fun yet? And all of this is for just one place. The Brainard Lake and Mt. Blue Sky vehicle access rules are different (Brainard opens 15 days ahead of time, while Blue Sky is a month ahead of time, and on that mountain not all vehicle reservations allow for access to everything on the road) despite both of them being managed by the recreation.gov website. Rocky Mountain National Park is different too. And now in the winter all the ski areas are starting to require parking reservations too.

Is any of this helpful? Maybe. Maybe not. Life is hard enough without having to deal with this micro-managing crap.

[Cruiser]

Both times this season that I've wanted a reservation for 3 days out I've had no trouble getting one by logging on at 8am

[benopp]

My experience is that they weren't right at 8 am 3 days beforehand, but showed up a few minutes later- i.e. around 8:05 but before 8:10 am. We were ultimately successful without too much of a mad rush for the 12:00am-12:10am parking passes this past Saturday. A bit strange. I wouldn't want to spread this seeming "fact" beyond this community.