We climbed the first little bit to an old mine shack at about 12,400 feet. What amazed me was how the miners had tunneled into the side of a rather shear cliff, about 350 feet up the side. It must have been rather treacherous to traverse over to the mine every morning on their way to work. And I thought my commute was bad!

At about 13,400 feet, we came to the saddle between Democrat to the west and Cameron to the northeast. Our original plan was to do Democrat first, then do Cameron, Lincoln, and Bross. However, I discovered that being 40 pounds overweight made it a lot more difficult than I had anticipated. The ridge from the saddle up to the summit of Democrat is very rocky with no real trail - the trail that did exist to the south of the summit was rather icy - so it was a rather tough climb for two out-of-shape flatlanders. Dennis did better than I did. When we returned to the saddle after reaching the summit, we decided to call it a day, and went back to camp rather than bagging all four peaks. I guess that gives us a reason to go back some time.