FKT: Chris Hopkins - Maroon Bells & Pyramid (CO) - 2026-08-16

Started and finished beside the maroon lake pit toilets. 3:16:16 roundtrip. Began from the lot just after 8am. Rather busy morning along the trail to the south maroon cut-off. Passed 30-35 people including 3 separate trail runners going up to west maroon pass. I reached the top of south maroon roughly four minutes ahead of the current fastest split, feeling unbelievably good. Getting into the bells traverse I was lucky in that any parties still ahead of me had finished traversing before I began so I could move pretty efficiently. Unfortunately it was at the first climb that the interior of both my quads began seizing up with cramps while stepping high on either foot. I simply relied on my arms to pull up through the two towers while almost entirely unweighting my legs if in a raised position. I reached north maroon at two hours and 13 minutes elapsed. Eight minutes under the split and about 23 minutes spent on the bells traverse. The descent was where I really began losing time and having a hard time keeping my quads from locking up on me. I kept the pace steady, trying not to overdo anything I would regret. I was surely on the brink of blowing up and having to stop entirely. With a few more cramping episodes along the way down I eventually reached the buckskin junction just 20 minutes before the current fastest time. I finally began to hustle again or I was gonna lose everything from the last three hours of effort. The crater lake trail was primed up with a hundred tourists enjoying their scenic Sunday hike while a skinny blonde kid came hobbling on by, running away from a bear (a question asked by one lady on my way down). Stumbling into the parking lot some 16 minutes later I finally came to a rest.