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After reading on this website about this mountain, we decided to give Mt. Democrat a try. This is a trip report that will probably be most useful to people who are from low-lands. Our family lives at 270 feet above sea level and had been staying at 10,000 feet for about five nights to acclimate.
Our main take-away from the experience was to be thoughtful about whose trail reports one is reading. While we climbed Mt. Democrat successfully and had the right gear and the right amount of drinks and food, we were surprised by the technical climbing in the last half of the summit. In the end, I think of it as you probably think of ski slope rating: a blue run at Breck is probably a black run in Vermont. Every mountain rates its runs against itself. Mountain hiking folks do the same.
I have a good amount of mountaineering experience and am comfortable on a mountain. My family, not so much. They are all athletes, but as you may gather from our home elevation, they haven't done much mountain climbing.
The drive up to Kite Lake Trailhead was just as described. Easy in a 4WD, tough but passable in a Nissan Altima, until the final half mile where we could easily park on the side of the road.
No one on this list seemed to notice that the trail was difficult to follow across three quarters of a mile of steep pitch scree. I'm guessing that's because the writers here are mainly accomplished, solid mountaineering folks. So, this note is for those who may be considering Mt. Democrat because it is one of the easiest 14ers, but who haven't done a lot of this. The first section between the saddle and the top of Mt. Democrat is very challenging. It's loose rock, or talus or scree. Depending on when you go, there may be snow on this ascent. Even if there isn't, keeping track of a trail in scree is challenging.
We would have liked to have brought talus poles, which plenty of people on the trail seemed to know to bring. We were thrilled to have applied sunscreen multiple times because we still got a little bit burned.
Start to finish was a hair under six hours for us. The locals were moving about twice our pace, it seemed. We weren't trying to move quickly, but were appreciative of reading somewhere that it could take as long as four hours to summit Democrat, because we were just a bit ahead of that pace.
Mt. Democrat was beautiful. Views are amazing from the start. On a Thursday morning, there were plenty of other hikers but it didn't feel crowded. Start early, take your time, and bring rain gear and plenty of water.
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I’m a flat–lander like yourself, and so I can empathize with the altitude challenges. I was up on Democrat on Monday and I also noticed that the route got harder to find. I’m going to wager a guess that this was largely due in part to the snowpatch that lingers up there. This was my 2nd time on Democrat and the first time I don’t remember having any question as to where to go. I’m pretty sure the snow is covering part of the standard route. When I was up on Monday all I found in that area were a few faint trail segments of dirt that I followed around the snow.
Thanks! Summit–ting was the highlight of our trip! There was an accomplished climber on the mountain who mentioned what you said here ––– he thought that the trail had been easier to find before on that post–summit hump. Actually, he thought that the snowpack that had recently melted may have made the trail hard to find. Either way, I think you are both right.
Amazing peak.
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