The Grand Pyramidal Traverse(Len Shoemaker->Lightning Pyramid->Thunder Pyramid->Pyramid Peak).

The reason I am writing this trip report is because of the lack of beta on the web on the traverse. I think 7 summits and a few others are a great and in depth, but I just wanted to add my opinion as an extra resource.

In short, this ridge is the hardest day objective I have had in the mountains thus far. I have only been hiking for two years, so my experience is decently limited. My comparable knowledge of technical ridges is only the "4 great traverses".

Ok getting into the meat and potatoes, we started from the car at 4:15 am. Moving up towards West Maroon Pass, you will make a left at a bent tree. It is just past the turnoff for the standard route for South Maroon Peak. The short section on the other side of Maroon Creek is extremely bushwack ish and quite steep, but it only takes 5-10min until you are at the beginning of Len Shoemaker Basin. From here, we continued up until we were below the northeast saddle of Len. It is a quick scree scramble to the saddle, and maybe 3 minutes of class 3+ until we were on the top of Len Shoemaker.

Moving back down and onward toward Lightning, mostly stay on the ridge direct if possible. The moral of this story is that this route is going to require a LOT of your own judgement and a metric ton of gaining and losing the ridge. I couldn't tell you how many times you will drop down into a little gulley or whatever to avoid stuff you think you shouldn't climb. If you see a 40 ft wall, you can climb it, but I sure am not.

Things to note on this traverse. 1) This is probably the single longest part of the day, it is slow-moving, extremely loose, and tedious. 2) It stays mostly class 3 for the whole way, there is one significant gulley to note before the summit of lightning that is extremely loose. We dropped down into it to avoid climbing the massive tower(pretty obvious) and it SUCKS. Cannot stress this enough this is the worst gulley we touched all day. It is super loose and full of sneaky giant rocks that will fold you. Plant your feet and take it with caution.

Hugging the east side of the ridge when needed and direct when you don't, you should soon be on the summit of Lightning. Woohoo.

This section(between lightning and thunder) is probably the most touched section of this ridge. Notable features on this section is the catwalk, and lots of class 4 ledge traversing. Just like before, stay ridge direct when you can, and east when you cannot.

We got off the ridge for a while and then climbed up a relatively solid and grassy gulley on the east side(surprise surprise) and soon we were standing on the summit of Thunder Pyramid.

OK, now here is the most fun, and the most difficult, section of the ridge, traversing to Pyramid Peak! There are some sneaky secrets about this section that are actually different than the rest of the route. Also, it is class 5 whaaaaat.

Coming down the ridge is quick, and you will run into fat ledges that go to the WEST(left) so crazy. This is near the unnamed high point. Continue traversing around the left side until you get back on the ridge. You will be doing a lot of ledge traversal for this section, then scramble up and over the top of the ridge. Continue down to the Col(idk if it's a col or a saddle fight me). In front of you will be a gigantic tower that looks decently impassable. Secret tip move around the tower to the left, onto a small dirt ledge, and then go up the class 4 rock gulley thing. Okay next, move around to the right side of the ridge. Here is the 15 foot 5.2-5.3 ish dihedral. Climb it. Now, continue along the right side below the ridge and then climb up one of the later gullies. You will cross through a few before the obviously climbable one that puts you back on Ridge Direct. Now you are staring at your final summit pitch.

The final summit pitch was two, short, but decently technical chimneys that we traversed slightly around the summit block of pyramid to access. I am not totally sure if these were "on-route" of the Northwest ridge, but nothing on this whole traverse felt on route either. Whatever we climbed felt more like a 5.5-5.6 range, so maybe they weren't totally correct, but they went. When you top out you also put your noggin right over the thousands of feet of air that is the eastern face. Super awesome. Then, it's just a few more steps to the summit. Yippee.

Hope this report is decently helpful, I now realize how much information I forgot as I was traversing, and how much harder it is to write one of these than I thought. If you take anything away from this know that this ridge is committing, long, loose, and fun. But, I would not do it again. Cheers.