{"id":372,"date":"2016-10-22T22:08:51","date_gmt":"2016-10-22T22:08:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/philturk.net\/?p=372"},"modified":"2025-01-23T00:17:04","modified_gmt":"2025-01-23T00:17:04","slug":"mount-lincoln-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philturk.net\/index.php\/2016\/10\/22\/mount-lincoln-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Mount Lincoln, 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was able to sneak in one last 14er climb before the snow starts falling. \u00a0Hieu Nguyen and I threw this trip together at the last minute. \u00a0We targeted Mount Lincoln, at 14,286′, located several miles northwest of Alma.<\/p>\n

We decided to go at this from the East Slopes route. \u00a0Altogether, it is about a 6-mile roundtrip with 2,650′ of elevation gain. \u00a0I’d put this at a 2 or 3 out of a scale of 10. \u00a0It is essentially a steep walk up an old mining road with a touch of Class 2 near the summit.<\/p>\n

The road getting to the trailhead was a rocky mess and required some care to not tear the undercarriage of my Jeep to shreds. \u00a0We arrived around 7:30 am and it was sunny and in the low 30s. \u00a0Right away, the route started to climb a bowl between Mount Bross and Mount Lincoln, heading straight to the west. \u00a0The wind began to blow and gust as we made easy work of the first mile or so.<\/p>\n

The route then wheeled up and around a pronounced cliff and finally the summit came into view. \u00a0We could see patches of snow here and there and the wind began to pick up even more. \u00a0Fortunately, I had some winter gloves and was able to stave off the chill as long as we kept moving.<\/p>\n

The last mile was a sharp ascent up to the tower-like summit. \u00a0The last several hundred yards, Hieu and I were postholing through stretches of snow in our trail runners and the wind was now at a full industrial roar (40, 50 mph?). \u00a0When we got to the summit, the wind chill was cold enough that we could only mill around for a minute or so before we decided to descend.<\/p>\n

The walk back out was relatively easy. \u00a0Again, the key here is to just stick to the old mining road. \u00a0We were back at the car by 11:00 am and never saw another hiker all morning \ud83d\ude42 \u00a0I suspect that it is time for me to get my snowshoes and winter mountaineering gear ready! \u00a013 down and 40 to go …<\/p>\n

(One thing that I have decided to let go of is obeying the so-called “3,000′ rule” in my quest to climb all the 14ers. \u00a0I’ll still stick to doing separate climbs for each 14er throughout my quest but it is not practical nor very much fun to impose some arbitrary minimum elevation gain on each of these climbs. \u00a0For example, to have met the rule for Mount Lincoln this morning, we would have had to have parked back down on a county road, where it was illegal to do so, to get the extra couple hundred feet of elevation gain. \u00a0And for what? \u00a0To experience the “joy” of walking an extra 1\/2 a mile on the county road to get to the trailhead?)<\/p>\n

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