Mt. Lincoln - 14,286 ft

Date:  7-21-2004

Climbers: George Barnes and Aaron Parker

Route:  Ascent: West Ridge from Kite Lake, Descent: West Slopes of Mt. Bross

RT distance:  5.4 miles (estimated)

RT time: 4 hours

Time to summit:  2 hours 30 minutes

Time on summit:  10 minutes

Time to trailhead: 1 hours 20 minutes

Elevation gain:  2,600 feet

Coordinates of TH:  39° 19.66'N, 106° 7.80'W

Coordinates of summit:  39° 21.08'N, 106° 6.68'W

USGS Quadrangles: Climax, Alma
 

Trip Report:

Pre-climb:

    The evening before the the climb Aaron and I camped at the Kite Lake campground.  Shortly before dark a large cloud moved up to the valley, engulfed our campsite, and then retracted by nightfall.  The afternoon had been already been interesting, with a vicious hail storm hitting minutes after we pitched our tents.

Climb:

    After a short night at the Kite Lake campground, Aaron and I were on the trail by 4 AM with intentions of reaching the summit before sunrise.

    We soon gained the Democrat-Cameron saddle and turned east to Cameron. It was becoming apparent that we wouldn't be making the summit of Lincoln before sunrise as it was already light enough that we didn't need our headlamps.
 

    Shortly before reaching the summit of Cameron we snapped a few alpenglow shots of the mountains to our west. When we gained the summit of Cameron the sun was just over the horizon.

    We soon gained the summit of Lincoln and snapped the obligatory summit shots.

    We decided that slogging back over Cameron wasn't terribly appealing, so we decided to contour around it and drop down the west side of Bross back to Kite Lake.

    After a camp stove breakfast at Kite Lake we loaded up and headed for home, stopping at Hoosier Pass for a quick photo.