These three peaks, ranked #8, 22 and 29, are side by side and easily
summited in one day. Located in the Tenmile-Mosquito range, Alma
is the nearest town, south of the ski area of Breckenridge. I climbed
all three one Saturday in September, 1994. It took about 6 hours
roundtrip starting from the Kite Lake trailhead. You climb about
3,500 feet over 5.5 miles for all three peaks.
Mt Cameron, 14 238, is not an "official" Fouteener since the adjancent
saddle only drops 152 feet below the other peaks. To be official, a
summit must rise at least 300 vertical feet above the closest saddle.
So in this case, close doesn't count but some people still claim the
day as the day they summited four 14'ers!
The dirt road to the trailhead can be dangerous and I recommend
a four-wheel drive but did it in a Ford Tarus! If it early Spring or
late Fall, there will be snow and you might get stuck thus costing
over $100 to get a tow out of local Alma. When I came down from my
summits, I had a flat tire!
These are fairly easy 14'ers with no technical aspects at
all. There is a little loose gravel (scree) on Democra and Bross. Also,
the trails can become invisible in the snow. The three mountains are
separated by the Democrat-Cameron saddle, a few hundred feet below
the summits. The normal trip goes to Democrat then Lincoln and finally
Bross. This last leg to Bross is somewhat boring in that the "trail" is
wide like a 4-wheel drive road and long. Also the last down climb to
the trailhead is on scree and a little tiring after a long day but
some people like the sliding on loose gravel!
All that said, I throughly enjoyed my day. The weather was
perfect and the views nice. Just look out for that drive up!
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