Height: 14,148
Range: Mosquito
Date: July 16, 2004
Cameron
Height: 14,238
Range: Mosquito
Date: July 16, 2004
Lincoln
Height: 14,286
Range: Mosquito
Date: July 16, 2004
Bross
Height: 14,172
Range: Mosquito
Date: July 16, 2004
I started this trip after working for a couple of days straight and being up for 40 hours. I left from work at atound 2:30am and drove to South Park colorado. As I was getting my gear together at the trailhead parking area I was surprised by a group of women who pulled up and started hiking - it was 4:30am. I got going at 4:45 and passed them on the way up. I made it to the summit of Democrat by 6:30, and to my surprise there was already someone there. He had camped on the summit and was just packing his gear up when I got there. I took a bunch of pics and then headed down the ridge toward Cameron. This was the second voyage for maggie the GPS, and I had done a better job of uploading acurate waypoints before attempting this hike. I was also getting used to using the handy unit. The panoramic shot and the summit shot above are from the summit of Democrat. The pic above shows the clouds rolling in from bellow. It was kind of a strange feeling on the way up as the clouds were moving in behind me like a fog and climbing at the same rate I was (like something out of a horror movie). The shot to the right is looking at Lincoln from the summit of Cameron.
Hiking over Cameron was pretty uneventfull except the wind was so strong that I lost my hat and it was pretty chilly up there for July. The true peak of Cameron is all the way to the North end of a huge flat summit, I reached that point at 8am. Then it was on to Lincoln which looks a little intimidating from a distance, but is actually very easy. The shot above is at the summit of Lincoln at 8:25am, I was a little tired at this point and the lack of sleep was catching up to me. I took about half an hour and shot a lot of pics here. The panoramic shot at the bottom of the page is from the summit of Lincoln. The shot to the left is me showing that I have now summited ten 14ers (not counting cameron which is unofficial) and the next one, Bross, is in the background. I didnt really notice while I was taking so much time with the pics, but the clouds were rolling in. I decided to pack up and head to Bross before it got nasty. The couple of groups behind me had nearly caught me at this point, but with that long rest I was making great time over to Bross.
I was actually skipping and jogging most of the way until the ascent where I slowed down a little. I made it to the Bross summit by 9:20. The two pics above are from Bross, one at the peak, and the other looking back toward Lincoln which is not even visable through the thick cloud cover. I used the GPS to find the route down since we couldnt see more than a few feet. I pointed the others in the right direction and then took off down the hill. I stayed on the trail which is not the route that I had plotted on the GPS. I had used the directions that I had got off the internet which is straight down a scree feild to plot the course beforehand. Sometimes when you get there the terrain is not what you expected, and I decided to stay on the more stable trail and head down the drainage. The shot below shows me near a waterfall on the way down and to the right of that is a pic from Highway 9 later in the day looking up at Lincoln and Bross. I made it back to the truck at 10:30 so that was only 5 hours and 45 min round trip, probably 5 hours of hiking.
