The Maroon Bells

A few miles outside of Aspen is the White River National Forest.  It’s a huge wilderness area that protects some of Colorado’s most beautiful mountain areas. It’s home to five 14K foot mountains and several 13k footers. The crown jewel of this area is the Maroon Bells. The “bells” are two side by side 14,000 ft bell shaped mountains.

The setting is spectacular. The scenic area is a narrow glacial valley with steep mountains on each side. The valley is high up at 9,500 ft.  At the end of the valley is Maroon Lake with the two snow-covered “bells” as a perfect back drop. It’s a hiker and photographers paradise. Words can’t do it justice. Here’s a gallery of pictures.

I had never heard of the Maroon Bells until I discovered them from reading a travel blog.  It’s there I learned that the Maroon Bells are one of the most photographed places in Colorado. Reading about it and seeing the pictures made it a bucket list item for this amateur photog.

Getting to the Maroon Bells is easy yet not so easy.  The Maroon Bells Scenic Area is about 12 miles from the town of Aspen. While not well-marked, there’s a nice two lane paved road that follows Maroon Creek and takes you right to the main scenic area and trail head. The scenic area has a nice parking lot, picnic area, and rests rooms. The difficult part is that because it is so popular, vehicle access is limited. In order to drive a vehicle into the area you have to arrive before 8:00 am or after 5:00 pm.

After 8:00 am or before 5:00 pm you have to take a bus to get into the Maroon Bells. The bus leaves from Aspen Highlands Village and runs about every 10 minutes. There’s a parking garage at Aspen Highlands along with the bus stop. Riding the bus is free.

The only other way to drive into the Maroon Bells is to have a camping permit and be camping at one of the three US Forest Service campsites along the Maroon Creek Road. Between these three campgrounds (Silver Bar, Silver Bell, and Silver Queen) there are about 20 campsites. The campsites are very rustic and made for tenters. Only one of these, Silver Queen, has a couple of sites that can fit a small RV.

Since this was a bucket list item, yours truly reserved a site a Silver Queen that could fit a 30 ft RV. I made the reservation 6 months in advance. With a campsite permit in hand, that meant I could drive the three miles down to the Maroon Bells with my RV any time of day while I was at Silver Queen. Yeah!

Silver Queen has only six sites. Site 1 and maybe sites 4 and 5 can accommodate a Class B or small Class C. Forgot trying to camp here with a travel trailer or anything larger than 30 ft. I had to jockey my rig several times into the site and use lots of leveling blocks. Silver Queen has trash pickup, a vault toilet, and a water spigot. It sits in a cluster of Aspens right next to Maroon Creek, which roars as loud as a generator.

Silver Queen Site 1

It was cool up at the “bells” over the two days we visited. It was in the mid 80’s in Carbondale and Aspen but dropped down in the 60’s up at the “bells”. Night time temps got down into the 40’s. So different from where we were just two days prior.

While the Maroon Bells was our main focus, we did stop-over in Aspen just to see how the top 1% of the 1% live. The whole Aspen Valley from Carbondale to Aspen is very different from the other parts of Colorado that we’ve visited. It’s more developed with upscale clusters of urban sprawl. Expensive chalets and vacation homes dot the hill sides. The main road (Route 82) into Aspen is a four lane highway. The airport had several rows of private jets parked by the runway

I had figured that Aspen would not be an RV friendly place, so we parked just a mile outside of town near the airport at the Buttermilk ski area and took the free RFTA bus into downtown Aspen. The lot we parked in was actually one of the RFTA commuter parking lots and the parking was free. There was plenty of room for all sizes of RV’s. The RFTA buses run about every 10 minutes. It was a good move as it looked like even cars have a hard time finding parking in Aspen.

Aspen is so different from the other big ski area towns we visited. Crested Butte is small, rustic, and very historic with its narrow streets. Telluride is a challenge to get to and is set in a cloistered dramatic setting. It tries to maintain its historic feel while catering to the upscale ski crowd.  Aspen is set in a large valley and is much larger than Telluride and Crested Butte. It’s more of an upscale resort town with a large ski area just a few blocks from the town center. It’s felt like a Rocky Mountain version of East Hampton, NY with major name brand fashion stores, lots of art galleries, and upscale restaurants. There’s no tee-shirt or souvenir shops Aspen.

It also appears more residential with streets that have all been widened. There are still a few historic buildings (The Opera House, Elks Lodge Court House, and Hotel Jerome) but most of the development appears new. Everything is well manicured with flower pots hanging from the street signs.

We visited for just a couple of hours to sight-see and grab lunch.  We ate lunch at the historic J Bar in the Hotel Jerome. The J Bar was a favorite of John Wayne, Lana Turner, Gary Cooper, The Eagles, Bill Murray, and Jack Nicholson.  It was also where Hunter S. Thompson hung out, drank scotch, and read his mail when he went into town. The bar is the original from the 1890’s as are many of the furnishings. Most everything is top shelf at the J Bar. The scotch is Johnny Walker Blue Label. The tequila is Casamigos. I had the $16 J Bar Burger which was outstanding.

Inside the J Bar

Hotel Jerome

People watching was also a treat during our visit to Aspen. There seemed to be an abundance of attractive women on the streets walking, holding shopping bags, riding bikes, and they were all dressed well.  My son commented that many appeared to have “had some work done” in certain places.

We camped in the only campground near Aspen. The US Forest Service Difficult Campground is 5 miles east of town on Route 82 going towards Leadville. It has 47 sites that are mostly intended for tenters. The single road in and around the campground is very narrow.  It has vault toilets, trash bins, and one water spigot.  It’s not much but it is close to Aspen.

We got showers at the Aspen Recreation Center (near the High School on Maroon Creek Road) It was $6.50 each for a shower at a lovely facility that in addition to pools, work out rooms, gyms, and a rock climbing wall, even had a huge ice rink for the patrons. Life is good if you live in Aspen.

I’m glad we saw Aspen.  If I had $5-$10M that I didn’t know what to do with and could get a permanent parking spot for my private jet at the airport, I’d buy a small condo there.

But the Maroon Bells was by far the best part of Aspen and the perfect scenic stop to cap off our Colorado Road Trip.