Three 14ers

I woke up at 3:30am on Saturday and drove just south of Breckenridge, CO. Three 14ers, Mt. Democrat, Mt. Lincoln, and Mt. Bross, are all within close proximity to each other and can be climbed together relatively easy.

The hike began uneventfully in the dark, however as lightness spread, clouds soon began rolling in. Quickly, I was engulfed in low lying clouds and could not see any of the surroundings. The clouds made the moutainside very mysterious. I could hear voices in the distances, but could not see the other hikers until they were right in front of me. The dogs totally freaked me out because they walked so quietly and just appeared without warning. Bad Dog!

I reached the summit of Mt. Democrat with the clouds continuing to block any views. The summit's name seemed appropriate...people blinded to their surroundings and complaining about things they can't change...like the weather. (Haha...let's see if that will get some more comments on my blog)

I hiked down to the saddle separating Mt. Democrat and Mt. Cameron. I saw a bunch of idiot kids, some with shorts on, that were hogging the trail. That is one nice thing about Class 3 hikes...keeps the riffraff out. The clouds appeared to be lifting as I reached the saddle, however, I believe it was only do to reducing my elevation. Here is a video of the scene.

I made way upward to Mt. Cameron and across the saddle to Mt. Lincoln, the 8th highest peak in Colorado. The clouds maintained their stranglehold on the mountain, so no views to be had.

As a group of us traversed over to Mt. Bross, we saw an unexpected sight on the side of a mountain hillside...a car. Apparently, the driver didn't believe in the "man" deciding where he could drive his vehicle, so he (probably she, Haha) decided to drive down a hiking trail. The car precariously clung to the slope. I told the guys we should flip it over and see how far it would roll (I'm guessing a good 1,000 feet) but couldn't get any other takers. I went over to the car and wiggled it a bit and got lectured by one of the other hikers. "Hey, you better not do that." Shut up, Beaver.

We reached Mt. Bross while still in the clouds and slowly descended down the west slope to the aptly named Kite Lake.

As I reached the trailhead, the clouds began lifting off the summit of Mt. Democrat. I was excited to finally see the mountain I climbed for the first time, but was irritated by the timing of it all.

I would say my favorite part of the trip was the 6 mile drive down the rugged road from the highway to Kite Lake. I pretended like my Explorer was a rally car and bounded down the road. Yehaw!

Although not seeing the views from any of the peaks was disappointing, there was still plenty of beauty to be seen.

More pics for Mom and Dad

http://picasaweb.google.com/N.Marshall.80/MtDemocratLincolnBross