Maroon Bells Panorama

(Shift moves in; Command on Mac zooms out. Might need to click on image first. On iDevice, can move device around to pan)

Hide... Just before peak fall color. Len Shoemaker Ridge (?) is barely visible up Wets Maroon Creek to the left; Maroon Peak might be barely visible while the buttress of North Maroon Peak hides that summit. Minnehaha Gulch is to the right, where the trail to Buckskin Pass rises. 18 September 2014

The Maroon Bells are nearly entirely made up of metamorphosed Maroon Formation, a Late Pennsylvanian to Early Permian pile of conglomerates and sandstones. The Bells stand out compared with the more frequent low relief of these rocks in part becase of metamorphism from Oligocene age intrusions to the south and west of the West Elk volcanic field, the nearest large one being at Snowmass Mountain to the west. This area is in a Laramide-age uplift that rose over younger sedimentary rock to the south on a northeast-dipping reverse fault. All the rock visible is Maroon with the exception probably of some of the Oligocene intrusives that are probably under the forested area at the base of Minnehaha Gulch. Crater Lake is impounded by a landslide (out of view) and usually has no surface outlet, the water draining through the porous debris.