Elks and Beyond -- Jordan White's Traveling, Skiing and Outdoor Adventures

Traveling, Ski Mountaineering and Climbing in Colorado and…

Pyramid Peak Ski: 3/22/09

Peak: Pyramid Peak
Route: NE Ridge Climb; East Face-Landry Ski
Date: 3/22/09
Partners: Nick Thompson, Adimmen

I don’t know what it was about Sunday, but I just really wanted to go ski Pyramid. Joe and I had great success on Capitol Peak 3 days earlier. Andy, Scott and I had another great day on North Maroon the day before. For some reason the Elks had just been calling to me, and what with them being my Backyard, I guess you could say we did our best to answer the call.

Andy and I came out of North Maroon on quite a high after getting to ski it in some great conditions, and were talking about what the next day should hold. I kept thinking Pyramid was at the top of my list, followed by the east face of Castle, or maybe just a big tour in Marble. A couple phone calls that night and Nick was up for the task.

Just as a heads up here, this TR is going to be forced to show more climbing than skiing because of some unfortunate events and cloud cover that left the light flat and made it almost too cold to take pictures.

After speaking with Nick we agreed on a 2 AM meet time at my place in Basalt. We loaded up the truck which still had the sled from the previous day in tow. We Motored up the redundant 15 or so miles to the roundabout and on up to the snowclosure at the Lazy ranch. We fired up the sled and I towed Nick and Andy the 8 miles to Maroon Lake.

I think that we didn’t end up walking until right about 5:10 AM. But to be honest we weren’t terribly worried at the time, as we had snow and wind blowing around in the darkness and not a star in the sky. This would all change soon though.

We followed the edge of the lake to the tourist bridge at the uphill end and crossed to climbers left of the lake. We skinned along the lower valley for a while trying to find the couloir we wanted to climb up the the amphitheater. After a while we grew tired of trying to set such a steep skin track and the booting commenced:

Photo Nick Thompson

About 45 minutes before the it got light, the clouds cleared and we were greeted with a full sky of stars. The wind had not left us yet though as we continued on and reached the amphitheatre around sunrise.

Photo Nick Thompson

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1 Comment

  1. chris lane May 6, 2009

    Jordan:
    Where do you live in Basalt? I live in southside and think that I met you once near there. I also met you when you were heading up North Maroon in march of this year. I was with matt ross and john gloor. I’m heading up Pyramid this weekend and would like to get some of your feedback for a moment prior to that.
    Chris lane

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