We climbed Democrat, Lincoln and Bross on August 12th, 2000, the day before Donna's 30th birthday. A few years before on my 30th birthday I had planned to climb Quandary solo, but June 8 saw a lot of snow on the mountain. I was not sufficiently equipped or motivated to deal with the deep snow, and after a nice night on the mountain, I bailed and went back to town to enjoy the rest of my birthday in relative comfort. But I digress...

Donna, Jake and I met Wes and Natalie in Indian Hills so we could carpool in Wes' Explorer. All the way Wes expressed his disgust with the automatic transmission of the Exploder, but this was the only vehicle suitable to drive all the way up to Kite Lake without scrapage. There were only a couple bad spots where I wouldn't take my car, but it was nice to cut some mileage off the hike. We were supposed to meet up with Natalie's friends Andy and Julie and their dog Morgan, but they didn't show up until well after dark. I regretted camping in such a popular spot because some campers didn't seem to understand how well their voices carried up there, and I did not sleep well at all that night.

A bonus for this particular evening was the Perseid meteor shower, which was supposed to be ideal for viewing at 05:00 after the moon set. This was right around the time I wanted to wake up, so when I finally saw that 04:45 had arrived, I got dressed and took Jake outside to watch for meteors. It had cleared up nicely after the light rain we had earlier, and I saw 3 or 4 shooting stars. I started to see lights in the basin as others campers stirred to prepare for the hike. I started packing up camp, then walked over to where Wes and Natalie were camped in the back of the Explorer. I tapped lightly on the glass and Wes tapped back right away, so I knew he was on the way out. I figured he'd want the chance to watch for meteors. It turned out that Andy, Julie and Morgan were parked next to Wes, so we all packed up our gear and got ready for the hike. Morgan was an 8 year-old Golden Retriever and Andy expressed some concern for her hiking condition, since she had some joint problems backpacking the weekend before. The vet gave her a shot of cortisone and advised her to take aspirin before hiking, so Andy was hoping that would do the trick.

We started up at 6:45, with 2 year-old Jake the Rocket Dog bounding off ahead as always. Natalie had never hiked a 14er before, but she was in reasonably good shape so I figured she'd at least summit Democrat unless she developed altitude sickness. Wes had done this same climb years before, in fact these were the only 14ers he had climbed. Donna hadn't climbed any of the three. I climbed them in 1995 via a convoluted route from Montgomery Reservoir. The Kite Lake route proved to be much shorter and easier!

The trail heads up toward the 13,380' saddle between Democrat and Cameron. Cameron, though 14,238', does not qualify as an "official" 14er since it doesn't rise at least 300' above the saddle with its neighbor, Mount Lincoln. Once the saddle is gained, you follow the east ridge of Democrat, switching back and forth as you gain altitude. Eventually you reach a semi-flat area and the summit is ahead after another short climb. This is a nice spot to reach, since you can see your goal is only a relatively few steps away. The climb from the Democrat/Cameron saddle to Democrat was easier than I remembered from the last time, partly because I'm better conditioned and experienced, and because we climbed it first instead of last.

We reached the summit at about 09:00. Wes and Natalie had bailed on Democrat at the saddle to climb the higher, but easier Mount Lincoln. Morgan was a real trooper, she was obviously tired but seemed to have no problem with her joints or her feet. Jake had a small cut just above one of his claws, but he didn't seem to notice when I prodded it. His toepads were nice and tough after 7 14ers this year, so his walking surfaces were fine. By the time we finished the hike I couldn't even tell where he had been cut.

Donna, Jake and I left Democrat's summit for the saddle, where we waited for Andy, Julie and Morgan. I figured they would call it quits after that, even if Morgan had no problems on the way down, and I was correct. We said our goodbyes at the saddle and headed up to Cameron at 10:00. The sky was overcast most of the morning, with the darker rain clouds off to the south. When we reached Cameron's summit the wind shifted to the south, and it looked like we were in for a little weather. Nothing looked threatening, so we hurried along to Lincoln's summit. From Cameron the route heads down to a shallow 14,080' saddle, then up a gentle grade to Lincoln, after passing a small summit. Lincoln's summit is the most interesting of the three, the east face is rather cliffy. On the way up to Lincoln we ran into Wes and Natalie. The had summited Lincoln and were resting before heading toward Bross and the descent from its west slopes. Natalie reported that she felt a little nauseous on the way up Lincoln, and her energy level was low, so they decided Lincoln was enough for one day. I congratulated her on climbing Colorado's 8th highest peak, and Donna and I headed up to Lincoln. Right about then a light rain started falling, so we donned rain gear and continued on. The rain stopped at Lincoln's summit, it was about 11:30 at that point.

Once the rain passed the weather looked stable; overcast, but no thunderheads in sight. This made for very nice hiking weather. The wind wasn't bad and the temperature ranged from about 53 to 65 during the hike. We traversed over to Bross' gentle, rounded summit. This was a longer distance than the walk from Cameron to Lincoln, but the grade is very shallow. There is a road that goes all the way up to Bross' summit, and sure enough, we saw a Jeep, a couple dirt bikes, and several ATVs tooling around the roads near the summit. The ATVs were annoyingly loud, and we could smell their exhaust when we passed them. We summited Bross at about 12:15, then headed straight down the scree gully.

The gully was not as easy a descent as I had hoped, since a lot of the fine scree/dirt mixture had been pushed aside, leaving a steep packed dirt trail covered with loose rocks. Still, it was a quick way down, even though it took its toll on my knees. Descent is often my least favorite part of the climb. We reached the trailhead at about 1:40, just under 7 hours for the round trip. Donna did well, no altitude sickness symptoms this time even with considerable time spent above 14K. She had a headache that wouldn't quit, but nothing she couldn't deal with. All in all, a fitting way to welcome her 4th decade.

Even though this was a repeat climb for me, it was from a different trailhead, and I thought it was a very enjoyable hike. This makes 11 climbs for me this year, and 10 for Jake. If I can only continue this pace for 3 or 4 more years I'll have climbed all the 14ers. I really want to climb some of the more interesting routes on mountains I've already climbed, like the west ridge of Quandary, the north ridge of Democrat, the east ridge of Bierstadt/Sawtooth/west ridge of Evans circle route... As nice as it is to climb new peaks and check off the list, I really enjoy getting to know some mountains even better, and seeing what they have to offer. Sometimes it feels like I'm cheating myself and the mountain by climbing the easiest standard routes, so it feels good to throw some "unnecessary" challenge into the mix. I'm hoping to climb the North Ridge of Kit Carson Peak in a few weeks: mostly class 3 punctuated with some class 4 sections. I'm a little nervous about it, but confident, and I think this is a fine balance.