by David A. Lien
Pyramid Peak Trail
In alpine skiing parlance, a DNF stands for “did not
finish.” I raced slalom and giant slalom for three years during high school and
had my share of discouraging DNFs, but I never let them stop me from getting
back up, brushing myself off, and trying again - and again, always learning
something from the setback and applying that experience to my next race. DNFs
happen on fourteeners too, especially mountains like Pyramid Peak. (I first
attempted Pyramid Peak, my fiftieth fourteener, on in July of 2002 and returned
to finish the job on August 18 of that year.)
Pyramid Peak is located at the head of the glacier-carved
West Maroon Creek Valley and is only two miles east of the Maroon Bells. The
geology of Pyramid Peak falls into the Elk Mountain’s characteristically
crumbly and sedimentary category. Summitpost.org says all 14,018 feet of the
mountain can be described by “the three R’s: red, rugged, and rotten.” Pyramid
is usually climbed using a Class 4–rated route up its northeast ridge and
east face, and website notes that “this could very well be the steepest
sustained [standard] route you will ever encounter on a fourteener.”
It is only three miles from the trailhead to the summit, but
you climb through 4,430 vertical feet to get there. The route leading to the
13,000-foot saddle is rated relentlessly steep Class 2+, and the peak’s last
1,000 feet are continuous Class 3 and 4 rated. Gerry Roach (Colorado’s Fourteeners,
1999) knows this route’s difficulties and writes that Pyramid is at the north
end of a “highly convoluted, 4-mile-long ridge between West Maroon and East
Maroon Creeks. Pyramid is the highest point on the ridge; it carries this
distinction well” (204).
Up early with lingering concerns about the possibility of
rain and slick terrain on such a dangerous mountain, I wasted over an hour before
sunup bushwhacking through the forest on a rain-soaked mountainside looking for
the Pyramid Peak Trail cutoff. After finding the trail, I scanned the early
morning sky for building clouds, saw none, and decided to continue up into the
hanging basin below Pyramid’s north face. Things still looked good there, so I
kept going.
After climbing and clawing my way upward for five hours, I
was finally nearing the summit, though I didn’t know it. About then a nearby
peak requiring a fairly long traverse to reach came into view. Was that Pyramid
Peak or was it possibly just minutes away directly above me? The clouds looked
as though they were building, but I wasn’t sure. I was, however, certain that
getting caught on this peak in a thunderstorm would be a very undesirable
event.
The route continued unremittingly steep and exposed, and the
treads on my boots were so well worn that they were better suited for skiing
than climbing on wet rocks and slick soil. I stopped, thought, and
contemplated; looked up at the clouds, down on the route below; and scanned the
rocks above looking - hoping for some sign (divine or otherwise) of the
summit. Then I turned around.
A group of five climbers coming up from behind - the
only others on the mountain that day - thought I was crazy for reversing
course after having come so far. Maybe so, this time, but one thing I’ve
learned from years of hiking and climbing in the mountains of Colorado and
elsewhere is that weather forecasting is an oxymoron, especially in places and
predicaments like this. Exercising common sense and reasonable caution,
combined with following my gut instincts, has gotten me up and down many peaks
others have died on in less-potentially-threatening conditions.
He who fights and runs away
lives to fight another day,
but he who in battle is slain,
will never rise to fight again.
- Old Proverb
The weather ended up being perfect all day, and I
subsequently discovered that Pyramid’s summit was a mere ten or fifteen minutes
away from where I turned around. It didn’t matter though. Even a chance of
having to negotiate the Northeast Ridge through clouds, lightning, rain, slick
rocks, and mud was not worth the risk. I’m not interested in recklessly risking
life or limb over a pile of rocks. Turning back is never easy, but the mountain
wasn’t going anywhere. As Cicero (a Roman author, orator, and politician) said,
“If you aspire to the highest place, it is no disgrace to stop at the second,
or even the third place.”
Besides, climbing isn’t just about reaching summits. Far
more important is what you see, feel, experience, and learn along the way.
Reinhold Messner wrote in All Fourteen 8,000ers, “In the final analysis, every
expedition… resolves down to a struggle with oneself, any inner insight gained
being infinitely more valuable than the…summit”(169). And in Sandstone Sunsets,
Mark Taylor adds, “The genuine odyssey or quest is not about piling up miles or
dangerous experiences. It is a deeply felt, risky, and unpredictable tour of
the soul” (71). Reinhold and Mark have it right.
Reaching any summit is a grand goal and fantastic
accomplishment, but the opportunity for silent soul-searching and quiet
contemplation is even more important. My friend, climbing-mountaineering guide
Gary Scott, writes that conquering “your Everest” isn’t the real secret to
inner peace: it’s what you learn and what you become from the attempt, and how
you apply that knowledge to your next mountain, to your next challenge (Summit
Strategies, 125). Edmund Hillary seemed to agree when he said, “It is not the
Mountain we conquer, but Ourselves.”
I would return to challenge Pyramid Peak another day,
accepting my DNF with dignity, and in the process continuing to learn about myself,
my capabilities, and our mountains and wilderness. That’s what life’s really
about anyway, isn’t it? I guess that’s for you to decide. In the winter 2002
issue of the Boundary Waters Journal, Tom Koshiol expressed my thoughts on this
subject perfectly: “Our experiences accumulate and make us who we are. We are
constantly becoming the sum-total of all the events in our lives and, in my
view, any time spent in the wilderness makes a nice addition to that total”
(“Winter Camping - Why Go?” p. 20). P
David Lien has climbed all Colorado fourteeners, the fifty
state highpoints, and six of the Seven Summits, with a DNF on Mount Everest. He
turned back at 25,200 feet on the north/Tibet side of Everest in 2006.