After Isaac's unfortunate probable food poisoning on the last great mountain hiking expedition, we entered into discussion and negotiations for a 2nd attempt. At first the plan was to go tackle Mt. Bierstadt, another 14'er in the neighborhood of Greys and Torreys. But after grandma pulled out her mountain file and we became aware of another group of peaks together, our plans became more ambitious. Why not try and do 4 in one day?? Isaac did not want to camp the night before (superstition of stomach bugs or hatred of camping?) and instead opted to leave at 4am instead. Easy choice for him, since he would simply be moving from one bed, to a less comfortable backseat as I drove. We woke up at 4 and were out the door 15 minutes later having done a most excellent job of packing the night before. There was not a hint of daylight for well over an hour. Maybe it was a lovely drive, I can't say. It was dark on the way there and I was mostly past caring for beautiful scenery on the way back. There was this funny house that put me in mind of an above ground hobbit hole. I slowed down and tried to take a snapshot through the windshield. Our good old rental Charger with its cavernous trunk was not optimal for the last few miles of rocky dirt road, but once again pulled through.
It was a whopping 36 degrees when we started hiking. It warned up once the sun hit us but the wind made us grateful for our many layers.
They must have had a discount on closed signs, we saw over 20. This one is actually different. Most of them said "Path closed for restoration". These were stuck on the paths being tromped along by over 100 people. At times, we felt we were on a hiking expressway. Mt. Bross is apparently owned by some old mining company. It hasn't been mined in ages as it became unprofitable. It hasn't been bothered with and may be "unsafe", but Coloradans seem to be treating it like they treated the "illegal" incline for years before the city finally embraced it.
There were only a few pretty flowers at the start this time. We almost immediately were in ROCKS.
On our way to Democrat first.
If you don't pay attention, it's easy to lose the trail. And if you get off, it's that much easier to start a bit of a rock avalanche. How did all these rocks get up here anyways? They seem cut and ready for a landscaping project. How did they get broken up? They look nothing like the volcanic rocks that got spawn out of Etna....
Yes there was still snow still left over on the first week of August.
Bless the folks who make signs and leave them under a paper weights (rocks) for others.
Oh. I forgot the other reason I wanted to try for another tall mountain. We had picked up sandwich bags, for last time (take a picture at the top and bring it in for a free sandwich!) but we couldn't find them at 5:30!! During the next week we found it stuck between the seat and center console. Curses. So this time we had one in our packs the whole time and we were going to use it!
Still Democrat. We had started hiking around 6:45am and made it to the top of the first peak in a little under 2 hours. We kept up a steady pace and didn't stop much. I'm sure Isaac could have gone faster, but he stuck with me and educated me about the pros and cons of various programming languages.
Heading back down the way we went up to get on the saddle to lead to Cameron.
The landscape was rather bleak, but still stunning.
See the little path?
Mt. Cameron almost 2 hours later. Some don't count this one because it doesn't rise over 300 feet above its saddle, but it's the 2nd tallest of the 4, so we are counting it-- as did whoever made the sign.
Continuing on towards Lincoln.
We made it to the smallest summit of the 4 and the tallest by 11am. The wind was a little too gusty up there. It made me a little nervous.
A random pretty probably practically untouched mountain lake.
Heading towards Mt. Bross.
Mountains from left to right: Bross, Democrat, Cameron, Lincoln(barely included).
Last one! We made it before 12:30. We paused here longer to take some time lapse videos of the awesome clouds. What we didn't know then was that everything we had done to that point was a piece of cake compared to the path going down. Up to that point we had been on level 1 trails. We were about to have our first taste of level 2. While level 2 does not require special gear or training, having a few choice swear words handy would have been helpful.
Looking across to Democrat.
Feeling cocky.
Look at the little ants waaaaaay down there.
Ugh. No more pictures during the next mile. We had to stay far apart because rocks were constantly coming loose and crashing down.
And finally the nastiness ended, we were out of the wind and we had beautiful bonus including flowers, a waterfall, clear cold stream and funny pikas.
It felt sooooo good to wash off hands in the freezing water.
We made it back to the car and began the drive back. I think Isaac was asleep before we hit asphalt.
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