Mt. Lincoln Trip Report 11/22/2010

Peak(s):	Mt. Lincoln - 14,293 feet Mt. Bross - 14,178 feet
Date Posted:	11/22/2010
Date Climbed:	11/20/2010
Author:	tedeliason

Shaking off some summer rust
Another anomalous weekend with K2 working temporary retail at Go-Lite and Marmot moo at her Mom's. Tried to take advantage of the solo time by hitting a ski route with pretty avoidable avy danger. Chose the Lincoln-Bross group because I didn't know for sure what the snow conditions would be, and the ease of skirting up the usually dry NE talus on Bross if the snow on Lincoln looked like it could trigger. Avy danger turned out not to be a factor. The mountain has been warm during the day, cold at night, and windscoured/wind-blasted on ridges and summits. Even more technical couloir lines were probably firm enough to try without much risk. The crux of the route was parking in a place without a "no trespassing" or "no parking" sign (settled on a turn-out on Park County Road 6 and skinning up through the trees south of the reservoir). Re-impressed with a difference 6 weeks can make. 6 weeks ago Victor and I were up the cable route on Longs in mostly dry conditions in 5 1/2 hours. With some mixed snow and gusty headwinds, this same 5 1/2 hours was my time needed to summit Bross on skins. Bross's East face had a better descent line than Lincoln, but wind was too much of a factor to drop in there. Whew. More kudos to those that ski the 14ers. How easy to forget how hiking trail is a hell of a lot easier than breaking trail in loose forest drift--let alone burning the added calories to keep warm, deal with weather, add layer changes, hurry under shorter days and heavier packs. Summer feels pretty soft in the rear view mirror. Meant to check out the icefall conditions on Lincoln to see if they were coming in yet. There remains a padlocked chain on the start of the road that heads down to Montgomery Res for normal ice climber parking. Also not sure what the Kite Lake access situation was, but did see two other climbers coming up the west face of Bross from that direction. Sorry for the lack of cool action ski shots. They don't capture as well on solo trips. There were some great turns directly off the East side of Lincoln's summit, off the East bench of Putnam Gulch and along the lower Quartzite Creek basin. Did not need to take the skis off on the descent but did have to pick down through some slim lines on the upper East bench. Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):

Shaking off some summer rust

Another anomalous weekend with K2 working temporary retail at Go-Lite and Marmot moo at her Mom's. Tried to take advantage of the solo time by hitting a ski route with pretty avoidable avy danger. Chose the Lincoln-Bross group because I didn't know for sure what the snow conditions would be, and the ease of skirting up the usually dry NE talus on Bross if the snow on Lincoln looked like it could trigger.

Avy danger turned out not to be a factor. The mountain has been warm during the day, cold at night, and windscoured/wind-blasted on ridges and summits. Even more technical couloir lines were probably firm enough to try without much risk. The crux of the route was parking in a place without a "no trespassing" or "no parking" sign (settled on a turn-out on Park County Road 6 and skinning up through the trees south of the reservoir).

Re-impressed with a difference 6 weeks can make. 6 weeks ago Victor and I were up the cable route on Longs in mostly dry conditions in 5 1/2 hours. With some mixed snow and gusty headwinds, this same 5 1/2 hours was my time needed to summit Bross on skins. Bross's East face had a better descent line than Lincoln, but wind was too much of a factor to drop in there. Whew. More kudos to those that ski the 14ers. How easy to forget how hiking trail is a hell of a lot easier than breaking trail in loose forest drift--let alone burning the added calories to keep warm, deal with weather, add layer changes, hurry under shorter days and heavier packs. Summer feels pretty soft in the rear view mirror.

Meant to check out the icefall conditions on Lincoln to see if they were coming in yet. There remains a padlocked chain on the start of the road that heads down to Montgomery Res for normal ice climber parking. Also not sure what the Kite Lake access situation was, but did see two other climbers coming up the west face of Bross from that direction.

Sorry for the lack of cool action ski shots. They don't capture as well on solo trips. There were some great turns directly off the East side of Lincoln's summit, off the East bench of Putnam Gulch and along the lower Quartzite Creek basin. Did not need to take the skis off on the descent but did have to pick down through some slim lines on the upper East bench.

Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):

Comments or Questions

Bean	Nice! 11/22/2010 3:58pm Way to get after it in November. This could be a season with an early start, methinks.
Presto	Good job ... 11/23/2010 5:02pm Nice photos ... many years ago during one winter, we ascended Lincoln via your descent route (and then did Cameron and descended Bross ... probably along your ascent route). It was sooo windy on Cameron that I had to crawl to the summit cairn (literally) Congrats on the summit. Thanks for posting. Happy trails!
tedeliason	Personal record on wind 11/23/2010 5:11pm Yeah. I failed to mention that at the summit of Bross, the trek over to South Bross was near impossible (as was going an additional 5'), up an over Cameron undesirable, to get on top of Lincoln I had to hand over hand my skis up instead of carry them, and on the way down a gusts literally ripped the sunglasses off my face and sent them down the mountain. Good times!
BLong	Boots 4/23/2011 10:22pm Nice skis! What boots are you using?
Perea	ACL 4/18/2014 7:27pm Looks like the ACL is healed!

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