On Sunday morning I climbed another 14er, Mount Democrat, with Josh Friesema. I set my alarm for 3 a.m., picked up Josh in Woodland Park at 4, and we were at the trail head and hiking by 6. It only took a few steps for my body to remind me that I had just finished hiking another 14er only about 18 hours ago. After eating and drinking something, I got a second wind and felt great the rest of the trip.
Thankfully, Josh navigated and broke trail on the way up. We stayed below the ridge to keep out of the wind and picked our way up the mountain through as shallow of snow as possible. It had snowed a few inches the night before, and in some places we were post-holing up to our waist. Most of the trip up was fairly solid footing though. Since the conditions were not as good as we had expected, we had to abandon the original plan of making all 4 summits of the 14er chain known as Decalibron (Democrat, Lincolon, Bross, and Cameron).
We met a few people on the mountain. Jason Cook followed us to the summit and provided some of the pictures you'll see below (the majority are from Josh though). Another group of 3 had spent the night in a tent a little ways up the mountain. All I can conclude was that they were practicing for something much bigger since they had gear and packs that looked like they were heading up Mt Everest. However, that theory has holes as does every other theory I can come up with.
Even though it was windy and the summit view was completely non-existent, I still had a great time. My truck once again glided over the snow drifts that stopped other vehicles. We were able to essentially drive to the summer trail head...and for that reason choosing the music to go with this slide show was a breeze.
Music by War (Low Rider)