"Confessions of a Peak Bagger-Part. I" Mt. Lincoln/Democrat/Bross This past weekend I started the first of many peak-bagging trips of the year. After two short classes on Fri. I was home, packing up for the first fourteeners of the year. I met Ben at I-70 and we drove up to Breckenridge and over Hooiser pass. We had a little fiasco finding the trailhead, but soon Ben's Tacoma carried us above treeline for an unorthadox start. We hiked up for about 1/2 an hour to the base of some snow filled Couloirs on Lincolns SE flank. We set up the tent on a grassy knoll and enjoyed one of our usual dinners of Rice and Beans. Ben wakes me up, the tent is dark. Only one thing could motivate me enough to leave my warm cocoon of down and Nylon:Fourteeners. We gear up and hike up to the base of our choosen couloir as the suns rays play across the eastern plains and the front range peaks. We strap on the crampons. We start climbing the couloir, sometimes using front-pointing, sometimes French techniques. We top out the couloir and see the actual summit further away and higher above us. We hike. I feel the altitude a little. Topping out I can make a mental check off my list of Fourteeners. Mt. Lincoln #14 We forge on, descending Lincoln, ascending and topping out on " unofficial" Cameron Point. We descend N from Cameron. We ascend Democrat topping with one other guy on the summit. Mt. Democrat #15 From the summit I can see the Sawatch and Elk Ranges to the west. The fourteeners beckon me... We descend Democrat, as hoards of peak baggers are coming up the trail to the saddle. We talk to a few and they are astounded that we have already done Lincoln and Democrat. It's called an alpine start. Starting from a camp in the dark instead of driving from the Metro-Denver area Basecamp. We are forced to painfully ascend Cameron again via a long and steep ridge. Ben starts zooming ahead of me, passing some people. I pass the people. Since I'm at the top of Cameron again, I take the time to scamper over 100 yds. to the summit cairn. I can't see Ben. Bross is our next objective so I head that way. I descent a snow drift and walk down some scree, Ben appears and we make the easy hike down to the saddle. From the saddle we hike up rounded Bross in 10-15 minutes. Mt. Bross #16 Bross's summit is so big and flat I think you could land a Bush Plane there in the right conditions. We scamble down scree to a continuous snow slope for glissading. The slope isn't too steep so glissading wansn't easy but still fun. We head out. Three Fourteeners in a day! You don't come by that arrangement too often. Confessions of a Peak Bagger-Part. II coming in a few weeks... Back to Dan's Basecamp |