"Started hiking from 11,100 feet. My climbing partner is 73 years old so we were not moving very fast and summited Castle around 2:30 pm on a very clear day. I talked him out of doing Conundrum because we wouldn’t get back to camp until dark. This is a real slog and my least favorite Fourteener in Colorado out of the 10 I have climbed since 2014. Do not hike this alone because there are dangerous and loose sections of this route and getting off route could be fatal. The final summit ridge was nice, but the hike up the ugly road was not. The final 2 miles of road os serious 4x4 work." — tlannin • Aug 9, 2023

"Rain, Hail, Wind, Deep Snow and Awesomeness. Definitely had my doubts on this summit after seeing all the snow, and based on how exhausted/wet/cold and in pain I was after just reaching the lake the night before, but was able to push through thanks to good ol’ summit fever. Next time I have to improve my crampon skills so I don’t shred my pants and gaiters." — LGH-Dan • Jun 17, 2023

"WOW. Hard to describe this "great traverse" of the Maroon Bells without writing a novel, so I'll sum it up briefly- Godawful long and steep ascent, awesome class 3-4 ridge scrambling and route finding in a rock climbers playground (lots of variations), with a few class 5 moves, then another godawful long and steep descent. This was my first time leading a group across some gnarly class 4-5 , and I had never been on it before, but this was absolutely amazing. This peak taught me a lot about myself, and that is saying something! " — LGH-Dan • Sep 7, 2021

"WOW. Hard to describe this "great traverse" of the Maroon Bells without writing a novel, so I'll sum it up briefly- Godawful long and steep ascent, awesome class 3-4 ridge scrambling and route finding in a rock climbers playground (lots of variations), with a few class 5 moves, then another godawful long and steep descent. This was my first time leading a group across some gnarly class 4-5 , and I had never been on it before, but this was absolutely amazing. This peak taught me a lot about myself, and that is saying something! " — LGH-Dan • Sep 7, 2021

"This is my second time using the gpx upload feature- so much better, at least for the ascent portion. Not sure what happened after that. Anyway, my Sept 1-3 Maroon Bells reservations I had to make back in April got cancelled due to the only stormy days in August, but I was luckily able to snag a spot in my friends car who was heading down a few days later. We camped out on some piece of pavement off of Castle Creek Rd, broke down at 3ish AM, drove to Maroon Lake TH and dragged our way too heavy bags up to basecamp at Crater Lake (not much water there btw). It was a long long haul, and I was dragging my a$$ for most of it. We definitely did some extra work in places but made up for it with shortcuts. After ascending up the dreadful bowl sides, we made a line for the summit from the ridge. This peaks is so damn cool. Lots of Indiana Jones type moves, stretching out across catwalks and ledges, and jumping over drops. Lots of goats at the top waiting for people to pee. We got down about 3-4pm Id guess and rested up for the bells traverse the following day. " — LGH-Dan • Sep 6, 2021