14,148 ft.

September 29, 2002

By Tim Briese

I drove to the Montgomery Reservoir Trailhead on an overcast morning in late September and arrived there a little after 7 a.m. Steve and Jason were already there and Brian pulled in a few minutes later. Steve showed us his brand new bright yellow Hummer and we joked about how it could probably take us halfway up the mountain. The four of us had never climbed together as a group before, and I was looking forward to this outing with these fine companions. Each of us had completed all the 14ers over the past few years, except that Jason yet needed only Culebra, so we shared a common bond of endeavor that gave us plenty to talk about.

At a quarter to eight we struck off on foot up the rough four wheel drive road that led up the valley to the west. The weather was quite marginal today, with a blustery wind ripping out of the southwest and showers of snow occasionally swirling out of the gray clouds above. The summits of the surrounding peaks were mostly hidden in the misty clouds. I thought our chances of a successful climb up the rugged class three ridge that lay ahead were dubious in these conditions.

We briskly hiked up the old road and went left at a junction and climbed gradually toward the heights above. I was generally familiar with the route since I had scouted it out when I climbed Clinton and Traver Peaks the month before. The clouds broke for a while and afforded us a fine view of Democrat’s grand north face. We headed to the southwest up into a high valley toward the saddle between Democrat and Traver. There were a few inches of snow on the ground and it became deeper as we went higher. We tried to step on rocks and avoid the soft snow as best we could, but bare rocks became harder to find as we ascended. The icy wind became more biting, too, so we stopped to put on warmer clothes and our gaiters.

From the high valley we did an ascending traverse up onto a rocky ridge to the left and climbed near its crest up to Point 13,460 on Democrat’s north ridge. Once we reached the crest of the ridge we were met by the full brunt of the wind that howled out of the southwest. It was viciously strong, but not as bad as I feared it might be. From Point 13,460 we had a fine view of the rugged complexities of the north ridge that lay ahead of us. It was quite an impressive and imposing sight.

We went through a notch and dropped down a hundred feet or so and traversed around the right (west) side of some massive fins. We gradually worked our way along the rough ridge, making some class three moves here and there when necessary. In places where the crest of the ridge was unsuitably rough we dropped down to the right to find manageable terrain. At one point Steve traversed across a narrow ledge above a smooth rock face that sloped sharply away and I hesitated to follow, being uncomfortable with slippery patches of snow on the rocks, and chose a route above where I felt safer. The rock was generally quite solid along the ridge, which made for a fun and exciting climb, although better weather would have been most welcome.

About a third of the way up the ridge the difficulties relented and the climbing eased to class two. At 13,700 feet we came upon the remains of an old mine structure that was perched on the crest of the ridge. As we peered down the steep couloir that dropped away to the north we marveled that this structure had been built in this lofty and wild place, and wondered what purpose it had served.

There was a faint trail in places that guided us upward on the upper portion of the ridge, generally a little to the right of the crest. When we neared the summit we found it necessary to climb a steep talus slope on the west side of the peak to finish the climb. Jason was the first to set foot on top, followed by myself and the other two.

It was quite a feeling of accomplishment to reach the summit after the rough climb up the rugged ridge in these conditions. The sun shone briefly as we sat and rested, but a dark cloud rapidly approached from the west. Even though it was cold and windy on the summit I was warm and comfortable for a while because of the exertion of the climb, but that soon waned. There was no one else with us on top but we could see a few climbers approaching below on the standard east slopes route. I’m certain we were the only adventurers to come up the north ridge that day!

After a half hour we left the top and rapidly descended the east slopes trail down to the Democrat/Cameron saddle. There was a friendly couple at the saddle who remarked that they needed to augment their climbing gear when they saw us dressed in our cold-weather attire. From the saddle we dropped down to the north on steep slopes of frozen scree and snow into the basin below. That slope was easy to go down but it would be a very trying route to ascend. In short order we were down in the basin hiking across easy grades as we descended gradually down a broad valley. There were numerous remnants of old mining structures in the valley, including an old outhouse and a small cabin with rusty bedsprings lying on the ground outside. It appeared that a small community had once dwelt in this remote place.

As we hiked down the valley we crossed the center of the drainage and did a gentle ascending traverse to gain the easy grassy slopes above its western side in order to avoid gnarly masses of willows below. Presently we regained the old road we had hiked up in the morning and followed it back down toward the trailhead, engaged in interesting conversation about climbing and other matters all the way. Our foursome enjoyed an excellent chemistry, with a fine compatibility of manner and style, and I hoped it might work out to climb together again sometime.

At 4:30 we returned to the trailhead at the reservoir. The eleven mile hike took us just under nine hours to complete. After resting awhile and exchanging goodbyes we got in our vehicles and left, concluding our successful adventure.

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