| Always intrigued by this peak and its reputed difficulty, I teamed
up with Chris Spahr to plan an assault. When I first started climbing, I never imagined I'd be
able to approach this peak with confidence, though after enough class 3 and 4 experience,
I felt pretty good about it. It truly is a comprehensive battery of skills tests for the uninitiated.
Originally we planned a Crestone Peak/Humboldt
combination, though some other constraints arose and we agreed that Pyramid would
be enough for a weekend. Chris had the foresight to call the Ranger for logistical
purposes of setting up a camp. We hiked in starting at 7:30 pm to Crater Lake,
which had an abundance of high quality camp sites, and was only 400 yards past the
turnoff to the East up the climbers trail. |
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We settled in for the night only to be harrassed by the local deer and a
60 - 70 lb. possom-looking thing. Animals in the elk range are by far the least
timid of any creatures I've ever encountered. Arising at 5:00 am, we set out
on the trail at 5:20. The turnoff for the Pyramid climbers trail is pretty
obvious: a large talus block with small rocks placed on it as a cairn. This
trail starts out steep after approaching the slope and only gets worse as time
goes on. The first photo on top shows the slope (the trail actually winds upward
through the trees on the left). This trail is mostly dirt, but loose rock makes
itself available rather early. After reaching the foot of the basin below Pyramid,
a long snowfield marked the route around the huge morraine towards the Northeast
ridge. Eventually, we ended up near the steep approach up to the saddle on the
ridge (photo on the left). Believe it or not, there is a good trail all the way up
to the saddle (and considerably farther up). This was quite a bit steeper than the
trail leading up from Crater Lake, and was time consuming. |
| Taking a break on the saddle, we contemplated the ascent of the final
1,000'. On the right is a shot of Pyramid from a little below the saddle.
From the perspective on the saddle, the climb looks almost impossible on its final
300'. We began our ascent again and soon met with the first of many pitches. The
first portion involved getting over some small towers to a flatter part of the ridge.
From here, we dropped down from the ridge to the East and began scrambling South to
the infamous ledge. This traverse across the 2' wide ledge was actually a lot of fun.
the potential fall here was negligable compared to other aprts of the route and is
not yet the crux by any means. The view to the top is mesmerizing from here, and still
looks incredibly far away. |
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A few more ledge systems and scree led to the base of
two different couloir-like structures: the green rock bands and a dirt gully
(photo of the ridge on left). We chose the green route, which was terribly loose and steep.
On the descent, we took the dirt route down, which was a lot easier. We followed
the rock up about 300' and then traversed to the southeast onto some more ledges. The
exit point is fairly obvious and well-cairned. I believe this is the true crux of the
route, though not yet the most airy. The top of the inset broken face of Pyramid
is about level with the top of the gully. The climbing had been absolutely relentless
to this point and didn't appear to be coming to an end any time soon. There is definitely class 4 climbing in the gully (photo on right). Once finishing with the gully system, the route not visible from the saddle
down below appears. |
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Loose, high-angle switchback hand climbing on the face begins.
In total, we must have encountered at least five more sections of class 4, though
I am sure our routefinding was right on target. The route continued to be
well-cairned and many cairns had green blaze tape marking them. There was a lot
of route finding once we were moving up this portion, walking on ledges to scope
out the easiest route upward. It was somewhat difficult to get off-route, however,
because there wasn't very much room to wander. Climbing up the route, we had a good
idea of how much higher we needed to go by looking over at Thunder Pyramid. The route
began to ease up in steepness a bit towards the top, but the exposure factor multiplied.
There are two different sections where the route winds around ledges right on the edge
of the face with a garden variety of Seashell size scree covering slabs (this was much
more of a concern on the way down). |
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Finally arriving near the summit, a low angle ridge leads the rest of the way. This
is no doubt a very rewarding summit, though the descent was ever-present on my mind.
It took a little over four hours to reach the summit, with over an hour spent on the
ridge. Descending was not any faster, and we had to use a lot of counter-pressure to
avoid taking a spill. Evntually, we made it down to the saddle, which was quite a relief.
I never felt too nervous on the climb, but I was aware of the danger and could see how
misplaced route finding could be disastrous. A very intense climb.
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