The Climb
Section 4: The Summit

summit view - a mile above the lakes

The Final Rocks. A scramble up a short cliff put us on the Southeast Ridge a second time. We were on another sidewalk in the sky, a beautiful, sloped staircase of boulders with steep, but spectacular, drops to either side. We had panoramic views of Crater and Maroon Lakes to the east and Capitol Peak to the west. A few minutes later, the staircase curved to the right around a huge bank of snow and we unexpectedly found ourselves on the high end of the bouldery and tilted 10 by 100-foot summit. The time was exactly 1 p.m.

TIP: Stay the HECK off that cornice. They do collapse or give way.

TIP: Do a weather check the minute you arrive on the summit. The Elks are notorious for afternoon storms.

TIP: If you are shirtless on top in sunlight, you can burn rapidly.

TIP: Be sure to fill out the summit log. Find it inside a PVC tube chained to a summit rock. Read the summit logs on line.

Crater Lake and Maroon Lake looked like little green puddles from 5,000 feet above. To the southwest, we could see the giant batholith of Capitol Peak and many valleys still streaked with snow.

When we arrived on the summit, Jace immediately shook everyone's hand. When shaking mine, he said "amazing!!!" in a really effusive voice. Everyone was relieved and high-spirited ... and the weather remained beautiful.

Joey, Jace and Chuck on the summit of Maroon

We found the summit log in a PVC tube chained to a rock and pulled it out. I began taking pictures. From the summit, we made phone calls to Brendan, DiShon, and Jim Horrar, 33, all of whom should have been there with us, and to anxious parents. We were so busy, it seemed like there were 10 of us up there. No one was particularly tired ... strange given the 3,900 vertical foot ascent.

I walked down to the slippery and exposed lower end of the summit to take a look at the other Bell, North Maroon Peak. North Maroon's summit is 133 feet lower and quite impressive. My camera jammed briefly on that picture and I forgot to retake it, but you can see our view of North Maroon here.

The two peaks are connected by an airy and very dangerous traverse that drops down about 250 feet and then rises again. The traverse surprised me. I was expecting a ridge connecting the two summits. Instead, there appeared to be no connection at all. It seemed to drop down a thousand feet and it looked narrow and rotten. Really, I was more concerned with the slippery footing at the lower end of the summit. Water from melting cornice snow was washing over the rocks there.

TIP: The traverse has some class 5 moves on it, requiring rappel skills. It is very exposed with 2,000-foot falls on both sides. It strands you high up for a long time, exposes you bad afternoon weather, consists of rotten rock, and dumps you on an unfamiliar mountain for your descent. I know of two who have died on the traverse in the two years since we climbed.

When I returned to the high point of the summit ridge, I saw Joey writing in the summit log and Jace talking on the phone. But then I saw something much more surprising -- Jake standing on the cornice wearing absolutely nothing. He had been doing bare snow angels there. You should never wander out on a cornice, of course. They have a nasty habit of breaking loose. But it was a funny scene. Jace spotted Jake while recording a voice message for his parents. Jace's surprise and laughter are preserved on tape to this day. A picture was obligatory.

Joey writing "I kicked this mountain's ass." Speaking of which ...

After Jake got dressed and rejoined us, I started hearing "whoosh" sounds and then loud "pops" all around the summit. Joey – you have to love this guy – had brought a bunch of bottle rockets for the summit celebration and the summit was now alive with crackling explosions. Joey had never failed on a summit. For him, the summit celebration was an inevitability. It was a joyous place this day. We treated a few blisters, finished the summit log and took a few pictures.

We noticed in the summit log that no one had summited Maroon the day before. We laughed aloud about the two guys we had run into the previous afternoon -- the ones who had supposedly made the top in five hours while climbing in rain and dense clouds. If they had made it, would they have ignored the summit log? I wonder.

After exactly 30 minutes on the top, we began seeing some rain and lightning in very isolated little storms on distant peaks. Storms never materialized on Maroon that whole day, but they are always a risk in the Elk Range. It was 1:30 p.m. which is a bit late to be high in the Elks. The weather here is a dangerous factor. Plus, when you are rejoicing on any summit, you must always remind yourself that you are, at that moment, the furthest you will ever be from shelter, food, rest and help.

Jake, Jace, and Chuck on the top

Going down took almost as long as going up – 6 hours. If you climb, you might want to remember that – especially if you are gambling with a late start or iffy weather.

Stepping down on bad rock, with your back to the mountain and air in front of you, commands caution. At one point, my empty Nalgene bottle kept getting snagged on the rocks and I got mad at it and threw it off the mountain. It went all the way down ... a frightening and surprising fall. But conditions remained sunny, we knew the route, and we took our time. Going down takes more concentration because you are tired and cannot use your hands as effectively.

Eventually, we achieved the top of the shoulder and the last of the significant risks was behind us. We rested, ate one last time and then headed down the grassy ledges. You tend to think the climb is over when you leave the rocks and arrive at the top of the grassy ledges, but the worst lies ahead. You still have 3 hard hours to go.

The grassy ledges are so steep that you cannot walk straight down. The trail down the ledges is only one mile long but drops a full half-mile in altitude!! In fact, near the top of the ledges, my other Nalgene bottle dislodged when it hit a rock and popped loose. The bottle bounced and bounced until it was out of view, undoubtedly making it all the way to the creek 2,800 vertical feet below. Going down, you sidestep constantly, causing your feet to slide. Worse, I had slightly hyper-extended my right knee sliding in scree in one of the gullies and my boots were more worn than I realized (14 climbs), so I ended up favoring one foot on the descent. That resulted in five of the largest blisters I have ever had and the descent took forever. Climbing the ledges was far more pleasant than descending them.

We arrived in camp at 8 p.m., stinky, thirsty, tired, sore and stiff from our 14 hour Odyssey. We all wanted a shower and some food, so we decided to break camp and hike out right away. We left at 9 p.m. in the dark. We had no water because no one wanted to filter any – a mistake. It was miserable hiking again and, worse, being under full pack. Jace nearly passed out from dehydration and we stopped and rested by Crater Lake for a while. We also had a scare while we were walking along in the dark with our headlamps. Joey saw something evil looking at us from the bushes and instantly yelled "EYES!!". (Joey likes to use a thing called metonymy. Once, while I was driving with him on a dark country road, I got distracted and almost missed a curve. Joey yelled ""FIELD!!".) Anyway, the eyes belonged to a buck and not a bear.

We arrived back in the parking area at midnight. I have never enjoyed anything as much as the hot soft drink waiting in the back of my truck. We checked into a hotel in Aspen and went downtown to eat chicken quesadillas at a little food stand called the Popcorn Wagon. Jace was so tired, he stayed in the truck and slept. I took him a bowl of chili. We should have been starved, but we did not eat much. Returning to the hotel, we peeled off stinky clothes, tended to blisters and took turns showering. I remain of the opinion that the second best feeling in life is the first hot shower after a mountain climb. We left an inch-deep sand bar in the tub. After a few obligatory towel-pops, we finally hit the rack at 4 a.m.

Joey, who normally needs 10 hours of sleep, got up after only four ... at 8 a.m. He wanted to relay news of the successful climb to his girlfriend, Tiffany, and send post cards. It was cool to see him that excited. I got up at 8 a.m. and went out too. During the day on Friday, we ate breakfast at McDonald's and then wandered the shops of sunny Aspen. We went to the Rachael Gallery (now the Pismo Gallery), an awesomely beautiful art glass company that stuns people of ANY age. We looked for the $300,000 crystal egg that had given Jace a headache on our March ski trip earlier that year, but it had been returned to a museum in Ohio. We returned to the hotel, wrote post cards, did laundry and went swimming.

On Saturday, we went back to Maroon Lake just to relax and look at our peak again. (The ranger -- a good guy -- gave us some humorous grief and then let us drive to the lake because we had a pass and we had climbed.) We then returned to Aspen and ate at an upscale restaurant near the ski lifts where Joey ordered the typical cheap stuff 17 year olds like -- lob$ter and truffle$. That night, we went to a salsa bar (sneaking Joey in while Jake got carded). Later, Jace played his guitar with a street player. We did not get to bed until after a long pillow and towel fight at 4 a.m. Jace wasn't prepared for Joey's church-camp training in pillow fighting and I thought I was going to have to step in. I think he could knock someone out with a pillow. Someone made an amused "Rocky" comment outside our window.

On Sunday, we left Aspen via Independence Pass so the guys could see the high country to the east of Aspen and see Mt. Elbert, the highest peak in the Rockies (14,433 feet), though vastly tamer than the Elk Range beasts. We stopped in Leadville and looked at all the Doc Holliday memorabilia and related history, and then returned to Denver to meet and have dinner with Jake's cousin, Scott, who is an accomplished rock climber. Then we began the long drive home through a hideous Sunday night storm that followed us all the way across Kansas. It was so bad, we named it the "Black Widow." We wandered around a dealership full of Hummers near St. Louis for about an hour on Monday afternoon and then met Brendan at a Steak & Shake in Evansville on Monday night.

And thus ended our great Maroon adventure. All of us were home safely, eagerly awaiting the trip photos and telling friends and family about the experience. Privately, the guys and I were also debating which mountain to climb next. Always high on our list is my nemesis, Capitol Peak, a 14,130 foot high plutonic batholith near the Maroon Bells. A lightning storm washed Jim Horrar and me off of Capitol's K-2 ridge in 1994. An ice-storm stopped Jace and me on Capitol's knife-edge in 2002. Then 60 mile per hour winds and physical problems stopped Joey, Brendan and me at K-2 in 2004. We are also thinking of Canada's beautiful Mt. Assiniboine (11,870 feet with monstrous 7,600 foot gain) and possibly the western and southern hemispheres' highest mountain, Cerro Aconcagua (22,840 feet).