My second day of tagging Colorado 14ers saw me in the Breckenridge area, tagging five summits over the course of the day. Four of these 14ers are part of the Lincoln Group and can be combined in a loop hike of 7.5mi and 3,400ft of gain. I managed to finish this before 10a, so headed over to hike Quandary Peak as a sort of bonus, a peak I thought I would have to save for another year. It added another 6mi and 3,300ft of gain, so combined they made for a pretty solid day.
Lincoln Group
I spent the night camped just off SR9 where it goes over the Continental Divide at over 11,500ft - that's one high piece of pavement, more than 1,500ft higher than any paved road in California. In the morning I was up by 5a and drove to the
Kite Lake TH.
There is a $3 charge to park there, thanks to the City of
Alma that manages the area, or one can park a mile down the road for free. I
figured two miles was easily worth $3. The lot was nearly full and would be
overflowing with cars parked well down the road before I returned. I timed my
start to avoid using a headlamp, right around 6a. I followed the loop in a
clockwise direction, heading up the well-maintained trail that leads to the
Democrat/Cameron saddle,
taking about 45min to climb the 1,350ft where 
views open up.
The previous day's weather never fully dissipated, leaving the skies
partially overcast and slowly growing to mostly overcast by noon. This
made for poor photographs, but had the advantage of keeping thunderstorms from
developing, leaving the afternoon safe for more hiking (I wouldn't have been
able to do Quandary so late in the day under normal circumstances). It was 40F
when I started out and would warm with the rising sun, but a cold wind blowing
over the summits and ridges kept it pretty cold most of the morning. On my way
up the saddle I picked up a doggie boot I found lying in the trail. Just before
the saddle I found its owner looking around for the missing shoe, thrilled
that I had picked it up and was able to return it. My good deed for the day was
done.
At the saddle I 
turned left
and climbed the remaining 800ft in another 20min.
The sun 
briefly shone as I approached the summit,
but it would disappear again
before I left the top. The trail was busy as I passed more than a dozen
parties. 
The summit
was even busier, it seemed, with folks lolling about all
over the place. I know, this is what CO 14ers are all about, but it did little
for me and I left after pausing only long enough to take a few
pictures of the 
surrounding views.
I 
returned to the saddle and then continued on the other
trail fork that climbs Mt. Cameron's 
Southwest Ridge.
The trail continued to be
in good shape all the way to the summit (Cameron has little prominence and
probably shouldn't be considered a valid 14er, but I don't make the rules)
where 
the flattish top
made for poor views. I 
continued northeast over the
summit to the highpoint of the group, Mt. Lincoln, which also happens to be the
highpoint of Park County and a P2K. There were several 
benchmarks
at the summit
but no register (none of the day's peaks had one - perhaps registers have
become passe on 14ers?) I did find a small cardboard sign with Mt. Lincoln,
the date and elevation written on it. I would find 
another of these
on the
summit of Quandary. I didn't realize this was "a thing" to do, make a sign to
show with your 14er selfie, then sharing it on social media. Seems the signs
might get passed to another summit party and eventually finding no one to pass
it on to, it gets tucked under a rock. Funny and sad at the same time. There's
a whole 14er.com circle jerk about these (that was one of the poster's term,
not mine).
I headed back off Lincoln towards Cameron, skirting the summit on its east side
to head south towards 
Mt. Bross. I was surprised to see
a sign indicating the
summit trail to Bross is closed. The sign looked somewhat old, but admittedly
I did no research on this beforehand. I had thought Culebra was the only
closed CO 14er, but if I had looked at any of the usual places (14ers.com,
SummitPost, etc) I would have found that indeed the summit of Bross is
officially closed to the public. Oh well. I continued towards the summit,
stopping to check out an 
old red pickup
that has been left to disintegrate
on the ridgeline. Evidently there is a 4WD track that can be driven to near
Bross's summit. How did I not know about this?
At Bross's summit I found a 
pair of ladies
hunkering behind one of the rock
windsceens to avoid the biting wind blowing over the summit.
Bross's summit is the worst of the lot, just
too large and flat to offer decent
views despite its high elevation. I headed
southwest off the summit, descending 
the trail
that would return to Kite Lake. This trail section was the worst of
those I traveled today. It is steep and loose and more resembling a use trail
in places than a maintained one. I suspect the Bross access issues has kept
folks from improving this trail. It might be better to travel it uphill rather
than the downhill direction I used. Once off the west side of Bross,
the trail improves as it crosses the 
lovely meadows
that occupy the middle parts of the
Buckskin Creek drainage. It was only when I got back to the start that I saw
the 
less-ambiguous sign
regarding Bross's access status - I had missed this in
the morning when I had started out. I was surprised to find that it was only
9:45a when I got 
back to the jeep,
a good workout but hardly enough to call it
a day.
Quandary Peak
During the earlier hike I had begun to think it would go much faster than planned and figured I could add Quandary Peak if the weather held out. It did. Quandary Peak is less than 4mi north of Mt. Lincoln, easily visible from Democrat, Cameron and Lincoln. It lies on the other side of the Continental Divide, which interestingly goes across a lower ridge between the Lincoln Group and Quandary. Quandary is also the Summit County highpoint. It was necessary to drive all the way back out to SR9, then north about 10mi to the junction with Blue Lakes Rd. The popular
Quandary Peak Trail
starts near the highway and climbs the 3mi-long East Ridge of Quandary. The
parking lot holds only half a dozen cars, but dozens of others lined the road
before and after the TH parking. The fast early birds were already back from
the summit, so I was able to find a parking spot close to the TH, and by 10:20a
I was starting up. My legs were tired but hardly exhausted, so I made good
time 
heading up.
Most of the folks I encountered were on their way down, but
I would soon start passing 
other folks that had similarly
gotten a late start. 
The trail is in excellent shape, starting off
through forest, then 
mixed with meadows,
then around the 1/3 mark, 
above treeline.
There were hundreds of folks on the
trail - couples, families, friends, some with dogs. One of the descending
parties commented that there was a mountain goat off the south side of the
ridge. When I climbed a bit higher, I could see that there was, indeed, a
white-haired mammal off in the rocks on that side. Then I heard a guy just
ahead on the trail screaming out "Taylor!!" over and over again, for more
than a minute. Seems it was
his all-white dog that had gone rogue off the trail that had been mistaken for
one of the alpine denizens. It went from being a touching Wilderness moment to
an extremely annoying CO 14er episode in just seconds.
There is a short, 
flattish section
about 2/3 of the way up, that makes for a
relaxing respite before the final climb up the rocky ridge. Thank goodness for
the trail, otherwise this would be a pretty tedious exercise. I reached
the summit
around 12:10p, just shy of two hours from the start. Like the other
14er summits, this one was pretty busy too, so I stayed only a few minutes
before 
starting down.
It would take about an hour and 20min to make my way back
down the same trail and I was
a little surprised to see folks still heading up even
when I was nearing the trailhead. As it turned out, the sky mostly cleared in
the late afternoon, so this would have been a good day for a late afternoon
climb, unusually. 
The trailhead
was busy upon my return, with faster folks
waiting around for their slower companions. One large SUV was parked right at
the trail's start with the doors open, perhaps to allow one of their party to
take as few extra steps as needed after exiting the trail.
I drove a short distance up the road where things were quieter and found a place to shower before returning to Breckenridge for the afternoon. Five 14ers and done before 1:30p - pretty good numbers, but unlikely to be repeated on the rest of this trip...