East Maroon Pass via Copper Creek Trail 983
5.6 mi
Distance
2 hrs 42 min
Time
terrain
2,067 ft
Elev Gain
Overview
This is a moderate one way trail to East Maroon Pass in Maroon Bells–Snowmass Wilderness Area.
This trail goes by Copper Lake.
Rate this Hike
★★★★★
We did this from Crested Butte to Aspen on July 15. We parked at copper creek trail head. Total distance was just over 17 miles. Left parking lot at 620 am and ended up at Maroon Bells shuttle around 430p. The river crossings slowed us down quite a bit. We stopped to switch out to water shoes where water was knee-deep 6 times. Only one of them was a bit tricky that was knee deep with fast moving water. We had equal number or more or river stream crossings where we could make it across without water topping over our boots. Once we went over the pass, there were a few easily navigable snow fields, but one sketchy area about 100 feet long that was luckily soft snow, but we were still glad we had our micro spikes and poles as it was definitely steep and a slip could have been ugly. The rest of the way down was rather uneventful except an area that had some massive downed trees over a short stretch. Had to go down hill on the first group and uphill on the second group to navigate. At the end end of the trail it is a bit of a painful uphill slog to get back to the shuttle pickup for Aspen so would be much easier to go down to East Maroon trailhead if you could get a ride from there. We were thinking of hiking back via West Maroon pass after a couple days in Aspen but not so sure now. Btw we only passed one hiker going the other direction to Crested Butte. Clearly not a lot of people have done this hike yet as trails a bit overgrown.
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Public Tracks
There are no published trips for this hike. There are 6 private trips.
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