Mt Democrat

Today we planned to hike Mt Democrat. I had hoped to camp up there to avoid the drive, but when Tia checked the weather, it was supposed to be freezing, so we decided to drive up. At 5:00am, I was up, with everyone moving slowly after that. Except Kendall. She’s quite the morning person.

A long drive up, getting us to Kite Lake around 8:30. We packed up and started up the path. About 20 minutes up, Kendall was struggling with a headache. We were worried about altitude sickness, so she and Tia went back down. She was upset, hoping to summit another 14er today, but it wasn’t to be. We think it was dehydration later, but that didn’t help.

Kyle, Delaney, and I continued up, a short, but steep trail to the saddle between Mt. Democrat and Mt Lincoln. We decided on Democrat as it was shorter, but it was steep. Lots of stops as we went up.

Delaney was tired, but when we heard voices near the top of a steep section, he thought it was the summit and bounded up. It was a false summit, with a nice 200yd or so flat section before a short steep climb to the summit.

We ate lunch at the top but it was so  windy that we started down soon. Fairly sunny, and no rain, but it was way too cold with the wind and the boys wanted to just head down. I would have done Lincoln as well, but didn’t want to go without them and my knee was tired anyway, so I came down.

We got back early, about 1:00 and headed home.

A good day overall, with my 4th 14er.