Pyramid Peak, a fourteener in Colorado’s Elk Mountains southwest of Aspen, is known for its ragged square-pyramidal summit and exceptionally steep rise above surrounding valleys and creeks, which gives it one of the state’s most dramatic mountain profiles. Ranked 47th highest in Colorado and 78th in the United States, it stands out as a prominent landmark near Aspen. Its standard climbing routes, the northeast ridge and the northwest ridge or Keyhole Route, require difficult route finding, exposure, and travel on loose rock, making them among the most difficult and dangerous standard ascents on Colorado fourteeners. The peak has also been the site of fatal accidents, including physicist Heinz Pagels’s death in 1988.