Emily and I wanted to hike a 14er mountain in Colorado before the summer was over so we started researching different mountains. After going through my book of top hikes in Colorado we found the Mt. Democrat, Mt. Lincoln, and Mt. Bross hike which is a hike up then over the ridge line of three Colorado 14ers.
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| Breckenridge Brew Co: Beer Flight |
We left of a Wednesday a drove to Breckenridge to check out the Breckenridge Brew Co. and had lunch. We ordered a beer flight in order to try all the beer and we discovered Emily and I have completely opposite tastes when it comes to beer which turned out to be a positive. After lunch we strolled through the quaint little town and had coffee and cookies while window shopping.
Once we finished exploring the town we headed toward Alma and toward the Mountain. On the way up the dirt road we saw Moose!!! "Didn't we just say we hadn't seen a moose yet?"
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| Moose!!! |
We made it to the campsites which were at the base of the mountain. I had made the poor assumption that we would still be in the woods so we could scout and gather fire wood, but we were above all the woods so we had to scavenge the other fire pits for unused wood. We lucked out and found enough to make a fire for the night. We camped at Kite Lake, luckily we packed lots of layers but apparently we didn't bring enough because I was waiting my feet freeze off. Between that and the wind which I felt was going to blow away with us in it. Upon waking up Emily's first question was, "Is there frost on your pillow?" that's how cold it was.
The next morning we crawled out of our tent with the wind still whipping around, packed up and started the hike. I will tell you now there are no switchbacks going up this mountain it is basically straight up, on the way up we got passed by a couple twice as old as us so that made us feel awesome (NOT). Once we made it up to the top of Mount Democrat we found a sign that had the date and elevation on it, our first question was, "Does someone actually hike this everyday?" At the top of the mountain we rested and debated continuing around the ridge to the other two 14ers, we ultimately decided to head back to the car because we had a three hour drive ahead of us.
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| Kite Lake: We thought it was just the windiness. |
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| Alma's Only Bar!!!! Literally! |
