The Maroon Bells (otherwise known as North and South Maroon Peak) are two much-photographed
peaks near Aspen.  For the past four year I've been living on a street named after them, and I figured
it was about time I tried to climb them.  Kurtis Mensch mentioned that he was interested as well,
and in June 2006 we finally managed to make the trip.

	The Maroon Bells.  South Maroon Peak  (14,156') is on the left and North Maroon (14,014') is on the right.  Our climb went up the Bell Cord, the snow couloir that ends at the low point on the skyline between South and North Maroon.		A friendly warning notice from the U.S. Forest Service.		The Bell Cord couloir faces east and it's best to climb it while the snow is still firm, so we started well before dawn.  We were about half-way up by the time the sun rose.
Looking down the Bell Cord couloir from near the top.		Snowmass and Capitol Peak as seen from the top of the Bell Cord couloir.		From the top of the Bell Cord it's a short 3rd-class scramble to the summit of South Maroon.  Here's Kurt at the top, with North Maroon behind him.		Here I am on the summit of South Maroon.
North Maroon as seen from South Maroon.  We followed the obvious broken ridge leading to the summit of North Maroon.		Climbing the ridge between South and North Maroon.  We brought a rope, but it stayed in our packs the whole way.		Kurt on the ridge between South and North Maroon.  Most of the ridge consists of easy but exposed scrambling on loose rubble like this.		This is me on the summit of North Maroon, with South Maroon in the background.
	The view north from the summit of North Maroon.  We'd started hiking from the second of the two small lakes in the distance.		Kurt descending the north-east ridge of North Maroon.  This was the most exciting part of the day, since the rocks were covered by thin layer of snow that by now had softened in the sun.  A slip would have meant a long tumble.		Almost back on level gound.  In the background is Pyramid Peak, which we'd climbed the previous year.