Handies, Democrat, Cameron, Lincoln & Bross

Two days, five 14er's.

We were in Steamboat Springs last weekend meeting some friends, before driving to Lake City, Colorado to start a week of 14er hikes.

Steamboat Lake State Park has a nice campground and the DOW Ranger gave a great talk on Saturday night (PowerPoint under the stars) about Mountain Lions. He addressed many of the myths and legends. My main take away was his statement that in his 32 years of being a Field DOW Agent he had only seen a mountain lion once when not specifically looking for one. So I guess casually running into one is pretty remote, even for those folks whose job it is to be in the bush most of the time.

On the way we stopped for a night at the Monarch Park campground and the views were in the million dollar category.

The fire-pit design at the campground turned in to a must have for CK, so one of the prison cell doors behind the shop is going to be re-purposed as a fire grill along with three big slabs of rough granite for the yard in Laporte.

It should be nice if you have access to skid loader to put it all together.

Monday we got to Lake City, Colorado which is positioned in a small valley with the Alpine Loop giveing access to the surrounding San Juan Mtns.

The campsite here was in a private campground and was a little tight compared to the State and National campgrounds. Luckily it rained most of Monday so we didn't need to be outside.

BK did a masterful job of backing in his 26' trailer.

Even getting the camper on the truck into the spot on the river required backing around a building and a couple of trailers.

The people in the campground (mostly from Oklahoma and Texas) were exceptionally friendly.

I rented a jeep for the trip up the Alpine Loop to the trail-head for Handies, which other then the 20+ mile drive in was about the easiest 14er I have been up.

The surrounding mountains were exceptionally rugged and provided some of the best views in the San Juan's.

BTW that is Sloane Lake beside my left hand in the background.

I also forgot the traditional sign.

It was a 3 1/2 hour round trip on the trail. Even for its relative remoteness there were a number of folks on the trail. This is a highly recommended 14er especially for first timers.

Tuesday evening we went to a presentation at the Lake City Arts Center about a trekking trip to Mt. Everest. The theater was full and the presentation was well thought out and delivered, too bad a few of the questioners afterwards hadn't put as much thought in to their questions, e.g Are the rocks wavy in the Himalayas?

Mid-week it was back to Pinon Rock and a trip to the Springs to pickup BK's pal Warren.

On Friday it was off to Hartsel to watch the 5th stage of the USA Procycling Challenge.

Sat there for about an hour to watch a 10 second mass of riders scream by. At least I can say I have been to a bike race now.

The pre-parade  and post-parade of motorcycles and cars dwarfed the peloton.

Saturday it was up at 4am and off to Park county to do the Democrat, Cameron, Lincoln, Bross loop of 14ers.

The days forecast called for a 40% chance of thunder storms after noon so the plan was to get around the cirque and back to Kite Lake early afternoon.

We hit the trail at 6am after what seemed like a rush hour scrum of vehicles heading out of Alma. We opted to pay the $3 bucks to park closer to the trail-head.

I last did these 4 peaks in 2009 and they seemed to have gotten higher in the last three years or ...

We hustled from Democrat to Cameron, which in my mind is a true 14er even though the cartographers will use some type of relief rational to say it isn't.

They obviously have not made the transit of the saddle from Democrat to Cameron.

Last time it had started to over develop during the transition from Cameron to Lincoln, but not today, looked like the forecasters may have gotten it wrong.

The Lincoln summit is pretty small and has plenty of places to fall off it to the east, south and west. We spent a few minutes taking pics and then headed for the final peak of the loop.

Its a pretty straight forward walk from Lincoln to Bross where you "wink, wink, nod, nod" bypass the actual summit due to a private property issue.

This summit is huge (from Google Sat Pics ;> ), you may need to walk around to three separate high spots thinking that each is the highest then realizing that the first spot was indeed the summit...I am just saying from Sat Pic observations.

At this point you are 1.5 miles from the Kite Lake parking areas, but it is one of the toughest downhill trails I have experienced.

By the time you get back to the lot, you just want to pack up and get a Diet Coke in town.

In 2009 I did the loop in 6:30 hours. This time I had trekking poles which really gave me some speed and set a personal best of 6:25 hours. I am not getting older, just faster.