DeCaLiBron — Attraction in Alma

Absolutely beautiful hike, started right at Dawn in August and although the parking lot was extremely crowded, that might have been due to a class of air force cadets going up that day and your experience might vary.

From the trailhead, it was about 1-2 miles up to the summit of the first mountain, Mt. Democrat. From Democrat, you can see kite lake, the trailhead, and the town of Alma to the west, and the backside of Quandary to the East. I would rank the hike up Democrat as a mid-high class 2 hike, meaning it's fairly difficult, but most people used to mountain climbing should fare fine. Two pieces of advice I'd give people looking to attempt this hike is to A. bring enough gear for a standard 14er hike, even if this seems shorter than others. I would also say that, if by the time you get up to the saddle, you're feeling really tired, keep in mind that you're only halfway up, so make your best decision based on that.

From Democrat, it was another 1.70 miles to the summit of Cameron, although, due to the lack of switchbacks on Cameron and the altitude loss from hiking back down to the saddle from Democrat, it feels much longer. From Cameron, you get a great view of Lincoln, Bross and Democrat and it acts as a great Centerpoint for all 3. One debate among lots of mountaineers is whether Cameron can be considered a mountain due to its low prominence to nearby Lincoln and Democrat. My viewpoint is that it's definitely a high point in the range that is located at least a mile from the closet other high point and as such, from a mountaineering perspective, it should be considered as it's own mountain.

The Cameron to Lincoln segment is a really nice and relatively short 1 mile spur out to the very prominent summit of Lincoln and I highly recommend doing it if you've already made it to Cameron. Lincoln is the steepest, Highest and only class 3 terrain in the entire hike, but the views are arguably the best. There is a very convincing false summit right before the true summit, and the true summit is fairly steep.

From Lincoln, the only legal ways to get back to the trailhead are via backtracking or through a segment called the "Bross Bypass".

Overall, this hike ended up totaling 9.7 miles for me, and it was a beautiful, if not deceptively...

A really fun hike if you start early! I did the counter clockwise route and started with Bross first, I started at 5 and reached the top well before sunrise. Becareful for porcupines! The hike up was pretty easy and felt good in the cold. I crossed the saddle area to Lincoln and this is where I watched maybe the most amazing sunrise ever from 14000 ft. I turned back and went over Cameron. Then it's a steep downclimb with many rocks to the bottom of the ridge before you ascend a very rocky and hard to navigate Democrat. I'd recommend this way. If you do the alternative way the climb from democrat to Cameron is really tough and defending cross is slippery. All told I completed these four in 3h 15m....

We went up Bross first because we had read going down Bross was hard with all the loose scree, and I believe this was the way to go. The two hardest parts for me were the initial incline (which will be rough either going up Democrat or Bross first) and then the final ascent to Democrat (steep scramble/hike at a very high altitude). I don’t hike very often, and I found the entire loop to be very challenging but awesome nonetheless. Road leading up to the trailhead is filled with holes and large rocks and I wish some work could...