Maroon Peak Summit Register

(C)Copyright 2002 by Carl Drews
Last update: November 19, 2004

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This page is an on-line reprint of an actual summit register from Maroon Peak near Aspen, Colorado. Maroon Peak is one of the famous and much-photographed Maroon Bells. In those lovely calendar pictures of Maroon Lake, Maroon Peak at 14,156 feet is the higher peak to the left and slightly farther back from the lake. North Maroon Peak at 14,014 feet is lower and sometimes considered to be a sub-peak of the main (South) Maroon Peak. According to the guide books, Maroon Peak by the easiest route involves nothing more difficult than Class 3 climbing, although there are several entries in the list below who may disagree with that assessment!

You can find gorgeous pictures of the Maroon Bells all over the Internet. But where else can you find a picture of the famous "Flintstones Outhouse"? Ha!

I climbed Maroon Peak via the south ridge on June 29, 2002, with Andy Steere. We noticed that the summit register was full, and so I retrieved it and replaced it with a new one. When I got home, I realized that I had the summit register in my hands for a few days before returning it the the Colorado Mountain Club. Why not type in all the entries and post the completed summit register on the Internet? Yeah!

It took several weeks' worth of lunch hours to enter all 478 names. The hardest part was in deciphering some of the handwriting. Exhausted people at 14,000 feet don't always write clearly, and sometimes they're in a hurry, too. I have made my best attempt to transcribe faithfully what was written down. Most people don't use punctuation except for exclamation marks, and so I have added periods and commas to indicate what I thought were sentence breaks, usually when somebody moved down to the next line. Many entries are in capital block letters, and I have changed this to reasonable capitalization. I have left spelling errors intact. I delivered the register to the Boulder Group of the Colorado Mountain Club on August 20.

I realized midway through the transcription that the summit register has captured September 11, 2001, the date when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Nobody signed the summit register on that date, but afterwards we see comments like "God bless America." Those attacks were on people's minds.

I am a bit puzzled that there are no entries during the winter. A few people do climb Maroon Peak in the winter, despite the avalanche danger - I've seen pictures. There could be a few reasons for this omission:

• They climbed but couldn't find the register under the snow.
• They climbed but just didn't feel like signing in.
• Nobody made a winter ascent during those two winters.

The Colorado Mountain Club takes the filled and returned summit registers, flattens them out, and stores them in their archives. This practice preserves the registers well, but unfortunately puts them off limits to bored people surfing the Internet. And that's just not right! If anybody else wants to enter and post other summit registers I would suggest including the phrase "summit register" and the word "reprint" somewhere in the web page so we can find them all with a search engine. I have used an ellipsis (...) to indicate missing text where the pages are torn. Perhaps I could fill in the missing text, but it's more fun to imagine that we're reading some ancient Greek manuscript!

The Colorado Mountain Club
Summit Register

Deposited on the summit of Maroon Peak
...8/18/2000 By Kevin Craig, Frank Moore, Doug Cook
...of this summit is 14,156

...this point are invited to register the month, day, and
...ascents with their names, addresses and comments.

...Mountain Club has placed this Register here for you to record
...for the Club to collect data on the number, frequency, and
...eople making this climb.

...ur entries with the attached pencil or pen. If it's missing, will
...ne in its place. Avoid using felt-tipped pens (if possible) as
...lly waterproof. Please check whether both sides of the sig-
...been filled before making your entry on a new page.

...appreciation of our purposes and efforts by carefully replac-
...in the plastic tube, securing the cover (not too tightly), and
...to the spot from which taken. The Club appreciates your
...eventing damage or removal of this Register before it is com-

...er is completely filled, please return it to:

The Colorado Mountain Club
710 10th St #200
Golden, CO 80401
or phone (303) 279-3080

...unite the energy, interests and knowledge of the students,
...of the mountains of Colorado; to collect and disseminate
...the Rocky Mountains in behalf of science, literature,
...timulate public interest in our mountain area; to
...on of forests, flowers, fauna, and natural scenery;
...sible the alpine attractions of this region.

If you wish to have your name removed from this page, please contact me.

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