DeCaLiBron Hike
When my good friend proposed the DeCaLiBron hike, I was first thinking if I could afford the time on that particular weekend but on second thought I agreed to it as I was always hoping to climb up these four fourteen thousand feet peaks (Mount Democrat, Mount Cameron, Mount Lincoln, Mount Bross) all at once. I have never done more than two in a day before and I thought this would be a good challenge. Years back I had done just Mount Democrat (one of the four) as part of our annual Peak Challenge charity hike. At that time I didn't do the full loop as I wasn't too sure about the weather and more importantly my physical abilities.
After leaving work a little early, we started our drive to the town of Fairplay in the high mountain plateau of South park, Colorado. On the way, we picked up dinner for the evening at Qdoba and lunch sandwich at Which Wich for the next day. There was not much traffic on our way to Fairplay.
After we reached Fairplay, we checked in the Riverside hotel and got our room keys. We then decided to head to the Kite Lake trailhead to scope out the trail for the next day's hike. After reaching the town of Alma which is just north of Fairplay, we headed on a dirt road for around 20 minutes, the last mile being very rocky. After reaching at the end of the rocky dirt road we were at the base of these wonderful mountains. The sky was clear, the air was crisp but a little chilly. Standing in front of the trailhead we could easily see the trail going up to Mount Bross to the right while the trail to the left headed to Mount Democrat & Mount Lincoln. Some folks online strongly recommended hiking Mount Bross first and then heading to the other peaks taking the loop counter-clockwise as the descent down Mount Bross is across a scree field and is treacherous.
When we were reading the sign-board describing the trail, another hiker over-heard our plans and recommended that we go clockwise instead and after hiking Mount Democrat/Mount Cameron/Mount Lincoln we could head to Mount Bross and then trace back to Mount Cameron to go down the same way we would have come up. We calculated that this would add an additional 3 miles to the trip for a total of around 10 miles. So essentially he recommended us to not do the full loop as we add originally planned. He also mentioned that Mount Bross was on private land. He himself was planning a hike to Mount Democrat with a visiting friend. They were preparing for a hike up to Mount Kilimanjaro. Now we were a little confused and were leaning towards the new plan suggested by this fellow hiker. We decided to have dinner and had a delicious Mexican bowl of rice, vegetables and beans.
While enjoying the views of these majestic mountains we were still thinking about the route to take the next day. We decided that we would do some more research later that evening after we went back to the hotel room. While going back, we were surprised to find many cars headed in at that late hour in the evening. We realized that a lot of them were camping at the trailhead itself.
At the hotel room we watched a video of a person who was taking a bike (yes a bike!) up Mount Bross. We also read other blogs where people were strongly recommending going up Mount Bross rather than climbing down that way. With our mind finally made up to stick to our original plan to go counter clockwise to Mount Bross first, we decided to call it a day.
After a night of good sleep, we woke up at 2.45 a.m. After getting ready and doing a few great yoga poses to stretch my sleepy stiff body, we headed out to the trailhead. When we reached the trailhead at 4.05 a.m. the small parking lot was already full. Luckily, we found a spot next to the parking lot. We hit the trail immediately there after. We had our headlamps on as it was still very dark. In the distance we could see a few people ahead of us with their headlamps. We were trying to search the turn off to the Mount Bross trail to the right. However at that hour in the dark, we couldn't locate it. After a while we knew for sure that we were much further down on the trail to Mount Democrat instead. So after around 15 minutes, we decided to turn back and find the trail to Mount Bross. It so happened that the turnoff was right near the main trailhead and we had missed reading the signboard. In the evening it was clearly visible but at this hour in the dark it had all but disappeared!
We were glad to be finally hiking up the Mount Bross trailhead at 4.30 a.m. There was a couple who had joined us along the trail. The guy mentioned that he had been up this trail before. For a while we chatted and hiked along together. The trail was fairly steep as we were hiking up around 1500 feet over a mile. We had to cross a small stream which was near a small waterfall. The sky up was very beautiful with the milky way clearly visible. We could only see the silhouettes of the mountains around us. After over an hour, the trail became very narrow and rocky. We thought we saw the summit ahead of us but it turned out to be a false summit. The trail now became very steep and slippery. Luckily we were going up so it was easy to balance. We hiked up two other false summits and then eventually made to the real summit as the sun was just about to rise. We could clearly see the valley down below that we hiked along with the other peaks that we were going to climb later in the day. The sunrise on top of Mount Bross was breathtaking. We could see mountains all around us. The top of Mount Bross is very wide and is like a football field. We took a few photos and spent a few minutes taking in the wonderful scenery around us. We then decided to get to our next stop, Mount Lincoln which we could see in a distance ahead of us. It looked huge and majestic.
From Mount Bross we descended down a nice wide trail and then we started climbing up to the saddle of Mount Lincoln. In the distance towards the west, we could see white clouds behind Mount Democrat. All these four peaks are covered with old mines and old mine roads. We were surprised to find a SUV parked on one of the roads here at this altitude. After we reached the saddle of Lincoln, we decided to speed up and reach the top. By this time the white clouds seemed to be approaching closer to Mount Democrat. The trail up Mount Lincoln is narrow and top is not that wide. There were couple of people who were at the top who had brought their bikes up! We couldn't comprehend how they could have achieved such a feet. But later on we realized that they had headed up using the mine roads in a SUV instead of using the hiking trail. After spending a few quick minutes at the top taking photos and enjoying the scenery, we decided to descend down.
As we were descending, we could see the white clouds engulfing Mount Democrat. With that our hopes of ascending Mount Democrat were diminishing as we had to yet hike up to Mount Cameron. While we were hiking up Mount Cameron, the clouds unfortunately had engulfed the top of Mount Cameron as well. Luckily there was no thunder or rain. At the top of Mount Cameron we couldn't see anything but white clouds/fog all around us. We then decided to descend Mount Cameron.
We were still undecided whether we wanted to take a chance to hike up Mount Democrat. We descended down fast to the saddle of Mount Democrat. As it hadn't rained yet and we hadn't heard any thunder, we decided to hike up Mount Democrat. There were a few others hiking up as well. It was slow going as there was another 500 feet up to hike. After we reached above 14000 feet and when we were barely 50 feet away from the top, it started raining. We decided that it would be best to head down immediately. There were a few others who decided to do the same. As we were heading down the rain picked up and it turned into a rain/snow mix. The trail and the rocks beneath our feet began to get wet and a little slippery. But we were very well prepared as we had our rain gear on as well as poles to help us climb down safely.
Mount Bross - 14177 feet
Mount Lincoln - 14295 feet
Mount Cameron - 14238 feet
Mount Democrat - 14148 feet
Total Hiking Distance ~ 7 miles
Total time ~ 6 hours
Total Elevation gain ~ 3000+ feet
Friday, August 17th, 2018
2.00 p.m. Leave Home
2.00 p.m. to 3.00 p.m. - Grab dinner for evening and lunch for next day
3.00 p.m. to 5.30 p.m. - Drive to Fairplay
5.30 p.m. to 6.00 p.m. - Checkin at Riverside Hotel in Fairplay
6.00 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. - Drive to Kite Lake trailhead, have dinner and scope the trail for DeCaLiBron hike
7.30 p.m. - Back at Riverside Hotel
8.15 p.m. - Go to Bed
Saturday, August 18th, 2018
2.45 a.m. - Wake up
3.35 a.m. - Checkout from Hotel and leave for Kite Lake trailhead
4.05 a.m. - Reach Trailhead
4.30 a.m. - Start hike up Mount Bross
6.30 a.m. - Reach top of Mount Bross
6.30 a.m. to 10.30 a.m. - Hike to Mount Lincoln, Mount Cameron and Mount Democrat
11.30 a.m. - Head home
2.30 p.m. - Reach home
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