A Four 14er Day

I mentioned back in July that we may try a collection of 14ers on Labor Day Weekend...and we did.

The four mountains were Mt. Democrat, Mt Cameron, Mt. Lincoln and Mt. Bross. Some may question Mt. Cameron due to the 300' prominence rule, but hiking up from Mt. Democrat (the more then 300' side) I will count this on my list.

Marlys did not go on this hike because of the exposure mentioned on the route info and from some of the pictures that had been posted. This was a good choice because there was exposure beyond what she would appreciate on the way up to Cameron, Lincoln and the sucker punch would/was the walk/slid down from Bross to Kite Lake, which was pretty brutal. Plus we were snowed for a couple of hours.

Herb and I left PR at 5am arriving to a full lot at Kite Lake about 6:30. There was even a line at the restrooms (which I would come to envy later in the day). We were on the trail at 6:50am. The sun wasn't up in the valley yet, but it was light enough.

The upper sections of Bross had a dusting of snow and there was frost on rocks making for some slippery steps. The trail though was well identified...from the number of people a head of us.

We even ran in to a few coming down from Democrat, which they had climbed the night before, benefiting from a full moon.

The pace was good and I was using trekking poles for the first time, which of the course of the day I appreciated more and more. These will be coming along next time.

The temp was pretty cool and gloves were needed. In fact when we got back to the truck in early afternoon the temp was only 37 degrees and even though I took off my gloves for a while I had them back on by mid trip and for the remainder of the hike.

The way this works is that Democrat, Cameron, Lincoln and Bross are laid out like a "T" with Dem, Cam and Lin across the top ant Bross at the bottom. The trail takes you up to the right arm between Dem and Cam, at that point you turn left and go up Democrat. After summitting it is back the way you came across to Cam, then continue on to Lincoln then back around the face of Cameron to Bross, then heading down. The vertical hiked during the course of summitting all four is ~3700' over the course of just over 7 miles.

Democrat was the first and longest up hill stretch, which after close to 2 hours into the climb the sanity of going up the other three is questioned. But after summitting and passing a blind climber being lead up by the person leading her ringing a jingle bell and describing the trail, the though of just going all the way back down exits quickly.

We got to the Mt. Democrat summit 2 hours in (8:50).

If you remember from July, Herb made a sign that was the hit of the Mt. Sherman summit group as it was passed around. THIS time Herb made 4, which as his faithful gun bear I schlepted up and down all four mountain's. Herb's signs though were a hit and people who had used them on one peak asked for them on the next one. We got out of it a fairly consistent group of folks that knew how to use our cameras and snap our pics.

It started to cloud up as we were heading up Cameron and was pretty much over developed once the summit was reached, in fact it looked like only the Lincoln summit was still in sunshine. We could also get a pretty view of Mt. Quandry which we had gone up two years ago this weekend. We got to the top of Cameron at 10:30. So again I will classify this as a 14er in my book.

This is looking back at Democrat from Cameron.

The hike over to Lincoln looked short and was, it only took us 30 minutes to get from the Cameron to Lincoln summit. The short hike was not without some interesting views which of course the pictures cannot do justice to.

We topped Lincoln at 11am.

I also had the rumblings of a possible GI tract episode. Thinking it my be from dehydration I drank some water, but no by the time we got to the top at Lincoln I needed to find a Men's Rock, even before the pictures we snapped. It seemed like I hiked down the north side of the mountain a long way before getting out of site and I would have to go all the way back up once the session was finalized. But I knew that there would be a chapter 2 before this story was complete.

The pictures from Lincoln pretty much had snow in them in every direction except east. By the time we started for Bross it was with us.

The hike to Bross is a little over a mile across the face of Cameron to the bottom of the "T". Chapter 2 decided that about half way there in the middle of a vast scree field was where it would throw back the curtains...if only that had been some curtains some place. I tried to get in a low spot where the full white moon would not cause any disruptions to the hikers on the trail above, but even there I would not be invisible. I just hoped no would trip and take a fall if they looked the wrong way. Luckily this would be the last chapter.

Herb not wanting to be associated with this act no matter how natural (yes I can rationalize it), decide to keep going and told me to catch up. This didn't happen until starting up Bross. Although we tried to stay in the correct areas, since the summit of Bross is officially closed for trail restoration, somehow we ended up at the top anyway...along with about 20 other folks. We should have had a GPS, oh damn I just remembered my phone has one. Well next time.

Speaking of cell phone there is nothing that says outdoors more then the sound of some idiots ringtone half way up Democrat. Hopefully the phone was accidentally dropped while being answered breaking into many unusable pieces. Cell phone can be very help in emergencies or taking pics (the July hike) but put them on vibrate after all this is natures theater.

We started down right just after noon, think it would be a nice hike on the trail we could see meandering down the side of Bross to Kite Lake.

The sucker punch was that the next 1:20 was filled with a steep, on the edge, slippery descent. We could see the truck, but it never seemed to get any closer. We both planted our asses on the trail a number of times and what had been a strenuous but relaxing hike, turned into a death march.

We made it back to the lot at 1:20pm for a circuit time of 6:30 minutes. Pretty good.

We are going to wait until next spring for the next hike.