Uggh pretty much zero minutes of sleep after a big day yesterday climbing Snowmass and motoring over Buckskin Pass in face of thunderstorms. Gotta figure out a more comfortable sleeping setup.

Despite this felt fine after a smashed Pop Tart in the early am darkness. We set out at 5:45am on the short walk from Crater Lake to the Pyramid Peak climber's path. Huge gratitude to the CFI for constructing this trail up through the first 1000' vert of scree slopes -- massive energy saver. At the end of the path, the talus-filled ampitheater provided some good-natured tedium before the steep/loose 1000' vert gully to the 13,000' saddle. At this point finally we were in position to tackle one of the most amazing routes of the 14ers.

The classic Northeast Ridge route proved to be a masterwork; kudos to the mad genius who pieced this puzzle together. We lived cairn by cairn as we scrambled over boulders, hugged ledges, lept gaps, and climbed the crux greenish rock. The last few hundred vert was a tiramisu of cliff bands that you weaved back and forth and up and over like a rat scurrying through a 14er maze.

Felt great to stand on top of the pyramid by 10:45am. The ridiculous vertical of Pyramid gives its summit a unique and exhilarating perch directly across from the Bells. Definitely one of my fave 14ers summits. Would like to give a shoutout to the only other people we saw out there all day that summitted 10 min after us (and who also had summited Snowmass the day before just like us but we hadn't crossed paths, only seen each other from a distance like ships passing in the night). Also shoutout to Josh, who took most of these photos, he always captures the shot. And finally, would like to give a huge shoutout to the many friendly mountain goats who assisted in routefinding by shimmying up ahead on the route except when they hung back to lick the salt from our pee.