Elk Range
I had a few weeks during the Spring of 2023 to play around Colorado a bit. In search of a bit of adventure I decided to go for a line that I had been able to preview only through photos and online sources: Thunder Pyramid’s East Ridge. These sources included the current cover of Mountain Town magazine, which featured an aerial shot of snowy Pyramid and Thunder Pyramid, as well as Cody Townsend’s video of the Landry Line off of Pyramid, which provided a few profile shots of the ridge. In the spirit of adventure I chose to forego any beta for the climb (not sure much in the way of beta really exists) and instead treat it as an exercise in pure mountaineering: to go for something beautiful I think I’m capable of and to exercise conservative decision making throughout the climb.
On May 20th I took the Bustang from Frisco to Glenwood Springs, hopped on the RFTA to Aspen, stopped off at Ute Mountaineer for gas and a quick update on snow conditions in the area, and took the shuttle to Aspen Highlands (the Bells shuttle wasn’t operational yet). I walked the road to the East Maroon Creek TH and hiked up until about 9500 ft where I set up camp.
I left my tent the following morning around 4 AM (a 2 AM start would be advisable), and the approach and bushwhack beyond treeline took longer than expected. Once into the basin between Pyramid and Thunder Pyramid, I was greeted with a quite decent supportable crust which only broke through a few times (though I think skinning this would have been much easier). I got lucky with decent cloud cover to the east in the morning which prevented snow from heating up too fast, but once sun hit the basin rocks started coming down and I got some really disconcerting propagating collapses that made me want to get out of the basin ASAP.
I gained Thunder Pyramid’s East Ridge via a gully splitting the ridge to the right of the large buttress. Climbing up this was a combination of wonderful alpine ice interspersed with crappy unconsolidated kitty litter that hadn’t yet sloughed off. Probably peaked around 55 degrees. Climbing over the cornice and onto the ridge I was greeted with fantastic views in all directions. The SE face of Pyramid seems like a dream, and during a good snow year I think the face would fill in enough for it to go solo: something to aspire to and train towards!
The ridge itself was mostly awesome hard-pack snow. Small leeward drifts provided some post-holing for short intervals but nothing terrible.
There are two major rock bands on the East ridge, one around 13,400 ft and one just below the summit. The former offers decent passage on the south side of the ridge, but I would be wary of straying too far off ridge proper as I began to wallow in dangerously steep snow that I’d sink into up to my chest. Staying closer to the ridge requires more rock scrambling, but it goes and isn’t nearly as insecure.
Beautiful but not very heady exposure defined the ridge above this point. There’s something fantastic about climbing along a snowy, well-defined ridge up high: just me, my tools, the snow, the wind, and silence.
The final rock band just below the summit offered passage via a chimney on the left side of the ridge that went at low 5th class. Felt very solid. And then there I was, somehow on top of Thunder Pyramid, one of the more notorious mountains in Colorado. Nobody on Pyramid, or either of the Bells (and the only tracks I’d seen on the hike in were from a black bear). It was too good! A weekend in the Elks and the mountains almost to myself!
I peered down the Thunder’s West face and could see why it houses the peak’s normal route: it was a seemingly continuous snow slope from West Maroon Creek up to 10 ft short of the summit (it does actually cliff out at the bottom and just requires a short traverse). And something dawned on me: I could descend this West face without having to worry about any technical difficulties, ideally in one long glissade, and I’d avoid having to down-climb the spicier sections of the ridge I’d climbed. Though it would mean a MUCH longer walk back the tent, it would be sick 🙂 and I’d have completed a circumnavigation of Pyramid Peak itself! I didn’t take much convincing.
So I sat on the summit for a half hour taking it in, and started down the west face, down-climbing rather than glissading the first several hundred feet due to their steepness. I was unfortunately mistaken as to the quality of the glissade that awaited me, as it was mostly just icy wet slide debris that the sun hadn’t softened yet. But I wouldn’t be denied my glissade! Midway through I felt a familiar not too painful sensation in my glutes, which prompted the thought: “I’m pretty sure I’ve just fucked my pants”. I had, each leg had a large hole through which snow entered freely, soaking everything from the waist down. Oh well! (Almost exactly two years prior I had glissaded on torn pants off Princeton and ended up rubbing one of my asscheeks raw. At least this time my glutes were spared!)
And so I made it to West Maroon Creek. The hike out to the trailhead was longer than expected, but the views were entertainment enough. I hiked down the road a bit, then crosses Maroon Creek again to gain access to the East Maroon Creek Trail, which brought me back to my tent after a few miles. I was pooped, my gear beyond soaked, so the thought of going for Pyramid the next day seemed off the table. Regardless I was very proud of myself for having gone for it, having had faith in myself, and having completed the adventure. It felt like a complete experience of the self, the likes of which feel relatively infrequent in the world today.
I slept in a bit the next morning, walked back to Aspen Highlands, got the shuttle into town, and subsequently the RFTA and Bustang back to Frisco where I crashed with a friend. Happy with it 🙂