| Bross, Lincoln, and Cameron in a Sleet Blizzard Trip Report |
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| Bross, Lincoln, and Cameron in a Sleet Blizzard   | 
| Page Type: Trip Report Location: Colorado, United States, North America Lat/Lon: 39.33530°N / 106.1069°W Date Climbed/Hiked: Sep 11, 1999 | Page By: Husker Created/Edited: Apr 24, 2005 / Object ID: 170023 Hits: 617 Loading... Page Score: 0% - 0 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
Having already bagged Mt. Democrat by itself with my speed challenged wife I was eager to snag the rest of these 14ers in the Tenmile-Mosquito range. My wife’s lifelong friend Diane agreed to hike them with me as she hadn’t gotten Mt. Bross. We arrived at the Kite Lake Trailhead just after dawn and started hiking up Bross’s West slope. We noticed it had sleeted the night before leaving about 3 inches of sleet on the ground at trailhead. We soon found however that the sleet lying quietly on the ground at trailhead became airborne with ferocity (Southeast winds were 75 mph) once we we achieved 13000 feet. Instead of following the south ridge, we ducked into the basin and then scrambled up the south side of Bross which gave us cover. Once we approached summit we realized just how bad the horizontal sleet felt. We couldn’t look in the Northwest direction, otherwise the face stung from the sleet. WE could occasionally position ourselves so the wind would actually help our ascent. We didn’t spend much time on Bross’s summit, and fought the wind as we made our way over to Lincoln. When we reached the talus near Lincoln’s summit the wind reached 80-85 mph, and the trail through the talus was sleet covered and slippery. Luckily the wind had our bodies leaning toward the rocky ridge as we made our way to the summit. It was so windy at the top all we wanted to do is touch the USGS marker with our hand and get the heck back down. On the way down we traversed over Mt. Cameron (which I count as a 14er). Once we got down below the connecting saddle between Cameron and Democrat the wind totally died down, and we quickly warmed up. The rest of the hike down to Kite Lake Trailhead was uneventful and we were back in our vehicle by 10:30 am.
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Mosquito Range
