Bells Traverse
I’d been looking forward to this since the inception of the trip. The legendary bells traverse. Maroon Peak to North Maroon Peak. Class 5. Scary, yet possible.
Somehow we were able to snag a permit for Crater Lake, in the Snowmass Wilderness, 2 days before we got there. There happened to be one available. This is the perfect spot to start your climb of the bells. We went to bed looking at them.
The night before our climb was the first night I’ve slept in a tent this whole trip. Ellen drove out from Denver to join us. She got here much earlier and had a whole day, and was setup reading a book, taking in the view, when Torin and I rolled up at about 6pm.
Ellen had pizza from Leadville for us, and candy, and Oreos. We ate well that night. It was so good to see her - our first time since I started this trip. I felt so lucky that she drove 4 hours to see me only for a few. Hopefully she’ll be back for more, and some less sketchy mountains, so she can bag a 14er with us.
We all got up at 3am, and Ellen joined us on our short hike to the beginning of the 2,800 ft of suck - 2,800 ft of gain in 1 mile. At the ridge line, around 13,200 ft she said goodbye and turned around.
From there, Torin and I started the slow process of route finding up to Maroon Peak. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. The deadly bells are no joke, so we took our time. Whenever something felt off we’d double back and look for other options. We had to do that several times.
We saw one person early in the morning when it was still dark and the motored right past us. From the summit of Maroon Peak we saw a party of 3 on North Maroon. That was it for the day. We had the place to ourselves.
The view from the top of Maroon Peak was cool. The rocks around it are so red, until you look over at Snowmass and Capitol which are steely grey. The valley is just spectacular. We had good weather, but there was smoke which discolored our view a bit.
Locking in for the traverse was a scary and exciting moment. With so much lore around it, we really didn’t know what to expect. The route wasn’t the most straightforward. The cairns we saw often conflicted with the 14ers app route - at least in our opinion. So we did our best to reconcile the two. The 5th class climbing, while not long, was right on what I felt comfortable soloing. Some of the climbs were like 40 ft straight up and if you slipped, see ya later. It really got the heart pumping.
The traverse was sick. The hype was real. I felt a physical sense of relief when we got on the summit of North Maroon. We still had some garbage scree to deal with, but the traverse was behind us.
With that, I finished all 4 of the major traverses - Little Bear to Blanca, the Crestone Traverse, El Diente to Wilson, and the Bells Traverse.
It was a long day. Almost 11 hours from camp back to camp. We had to maybe get Pyramid in today, but there was a thunderstorm, so we put up our tents to wait it out. We had a campsite several miles down the road, but several of the sites here that say they are reserved are empty. So we are going to chance it. These permit systems really leave a lot to be desired. I was in the Indian Peaks several weeks ago, and of the 14 permitted sites, us and one other party were there. The rest were reserved though. Idk what the solution is but this is frustrating.
The Bells weren’t as bad as I made them out to be in my head. I found the rock to not be that much more rotten than other mountains. As long as you stay on route. If you go off route there is scary loose rock everywhere. It’s certainly less forgiving than other mountains and if you’re not focused you’ll have some serious problems.
