Maroon Bells Traverse: Maroon Peak to North Maroon Peak

Such an unbelievable morning yesterday (9/01/24). I didn't leave Fort Collins until a little past 7pm on Saturday, so I got to the west side of Independence Pass close to midnight. I managed to get a couple hours of sleep before I met Fidel in Aspen and we carpooled up to the trailhead. We hit the trail just past 3am and were the first people up on the summit of Maroon Peak that morning. Watching the sun come up over Pyramid Peak was unreal. It took us about two hours to complete the traverse to North Maroon Peak. Unfortunately I forgot the attachment to clip my gopro to my helmet so I only got a little footage of the climbing sections while holding it. Although it was short, the traverse was still pretty gnarly- lots of 5th class pitches with some hefty exposure. We descended off the summit of North Maroon with some other hikers and got back to the trailhead at noon! Super stoked to complete this one under such ideal conditions. Puts me at 2/4 of the great 14er traverses and 3/6 of the class 4 14ers (Capitol, Little Bear, and North Maroon done now) all in the span of a couple weeks! 00:00 Hiking up to Maroon Peak 00:57 sunrise! 01:57 Maroon Peak summit push 04:17 downclimbing Maroon Peak (start of the traverse) 05:08 the climb up to North Maroon Peak 11:00 summit of North Maroon Peak 11:10 the descent