6/21/2015 Route: East Slope Posted On: 6/22/2015, By: dleighto Info: Carried snowshoes and ice axes but never took them off the pack for the full four peak circuit, we certainly regretted the extra weight though. We hiked Democrat in the morning (starting at 5:30AM), definitely do this one early. There was lots of snow cover, but firm enough in the morning that microspikes and trekking poles were sufficient. We then did the ridge loop to hit Cameron, Lincoln, and Bross and bare boots were fine the whole way. Some patches of soft snow (60's degF) on the ridge, but easy enough that we didn't bother to put the snowshoes on. Ridge trails are mostly dry. |
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6/20/2015 Route: South Slope Posted On: 6/21/2015, By: Arrowpig Info: Used crampons and poles. I highly recommend them. We were able to slide down on our butts from part of the false summit back down to the east toward Cameron. There were some parts on the upper portion of the climb, just below the false summit, that the snow is pretty soft. Mixed snow and bare rock. Some folks were doing this without traction or poles. |
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6/14/2015 Route: East Slope Posted On: 6/14/2015, By: sky_high Info: I arrived at the peak around an hour before sunrise and parked below the Kite Lake trailhead. The road is walkable in boots up the the trailhead, but then turns to snow for the rest of the way. There must not have been a freeze overnight because the snow was already loose and wet when I started. Apparently, another group had come up even earlier and taken the wrong trail, ending up at the summit via the southeast face. The normal trail is well trodden, but I strongly recommend not undertaking this peak without traction/flotation. The snow is very loose right now, and while the chance of an avalanche is slim, the chance of slipping your way down the rocks is excellent. There is some exposed scree to climb on from above the lower gully on the east face. Once you get to it, it is possible to get through the scree in boots with traction up to about 3/4 of the way up the mountain. Above that it was all wet snow until about 300 feet from the actual summit. If you're going to glissade down, remember to watch out for the rocks as they are just starting to poke their heads from the snow right now and it's easy to end up with a boulder to the rear. As for the Decalibron, the path looks clear with really reasonable exposure right now. As others have mentioned, it is very doable, but may take the better part of a day if you're not skinning and you have to pound through wet slush. The quality of snow was poor enough today that I nixed it. |
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6/13/2015 Route: East Slope Posted On: 6/14/2015, By: rayraysayshi Info: The dirt road up to Kite Lake is blocked by about a foot of snow about a half mile to the campground and is melting quickly and only accessible by foot. I climbed the DeCaLiBron and started at the Democrat trailhead at 6am. If you are climbing any later you will need snowshoes as the snow starts to melt later in the day. You are going to need traction cleats for snow and ice because the trail on the eastern slope is mostly covered with snow. Additionally you will need an ice pick to make footing holds along the steeper parts of the climb. Otherwise I would not advise trying for the summit without climbing poles as the trails are covered with snow. We were able to reach the summit at 8:26 |
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6/4/2015 Route: West Face Posted On: 6/5/2015, By: vadim4o Info: Looks like all West Face couloirs avalanched recently. Snow conditions are pretty stable. Approach requires flotation. Rare opportunity to go Democrat's West Face! |
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5/31/2015 Route: East Slope Posted On: 5/31/2015, By: a day in the life Info: Road is snow free to approx. 1/2 to 3/4 mile above Paris Mill. There wasn‘t a great freeze last night. Amazing snow and great skiing from summit to Dem/Cam saddle, and then noticeably softer below. I hadn‘t expected the skiing up high to be that good. I initially wanted to ski south slopes but changed plans in part due to weak freeze and soft snow at lower elevations. South slopes probably would have skied fine imo but didn‘t chance it today. Large amount of recent wet loose point release slide activity below rock bands in the area. Most of what I saw was probably D1 to D1.5. On the drive home we saw significant wet slide activity everywhere we looked (hoosier pass, ten mile range, loveland pass) and some of that was D2 or possibly larger. It looked like there was a huge debris pile just east of A-basin that slid from the ridge between Grizzly and Lenawee. |
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5/30/2015 Route: East Slope Posted On: 6/1/2015, By: salisbur1 Info: Skied Democrat from the summit. The weather forecasted a low of 23, though it didn't feel that cold at the car at my start time of 6 a.m. But running water on the road had a pretty good ice covering. The snow was excellent. I ended up booting it all the way to the summit. I dug a pit around 13.5K, and it was all solid and compacted for a foot and a half. A couple of inches of new snow on an intermittent sustrugi base. A real skier would have ate it up, but I was concerned about loosing an edge so descended what I ascended. 7 hrs round trip and that was with a good amount of loafing. I could ski back to the car with just two quick portages. Great winter wonderland coverage. Time to shred if it gets cold. Oh, and you‘ll more than likely want crampons. |
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4/25/2015 Route: East Slope Posted On: 4/25/2015, By: yingyangsoup89 Info: Hiked up from Paris Mill. Microspikes required until kite lake TH, then snowshoes for the entire ascent/descent. A lot of new snow. Was caught in a blizzard today. More on the way. |
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4/14/2015 Route: North Ridge/Face Posted On: 4/14/2015, By: mojah Info: Still prime skiing off of the north face. Neighboring 14ers looked pretty dry. |
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4/4/2015 Route: East Slope Posted On: 4/5/2015, By: kinnigit Info: Climbed Decalibron on April 4th. The road to kite lake is blocked about 3 miles from the kite lake trail head, so be sure to add 6 miles to whatever you plan to hike that day. We did not need snowshoes, but microspikes were necessary for Democrat and traversing Cameron to get over to Bross. Plenty snow everywhere, as it warms up postholing may become more of an issue. For us, we did not posthole at all. VERY windy and cold. |
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3/31/2015 Route: South Slope Posted On: 3/31/2015, By: bmcqueen Info: Spring snow conditions on Democrat south face - snow was well consolidated today and in great shape for climbing. I put crampons on just above Kite Lake and ascended snow towards the shoulder below south face. A bit worried about sun warming the snow high on the face, so I veered left towards the prominent cliff band and climbed the longest (2nd from right) to get to upper mountain. No crampons or traction needed on the upper mountain on nice spring snow. Descended standard route back to the saddle. Thought about putting micro spikes on for that, but decided it wasn‘t worth stopping. Two nice long glissades down to the lake from below the saddle (using axe to manage speed). |
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3/29/2015 Route: East Slope Posted On: 3/31/2015, By: crowdsurf Info: Road still closed at the Paris mill. Had to hike in another 3 miles to the Lake. Conditions were very windy but skies were clear. Very warm on the decent. Lots of snow beginning to melt. This was my first winter 14er and I did not bring any crampons or snowshoes. Will definitely not make that mistake again. Lots of post-holing along the trail from the Lake back to the car. Face got wind burnt but all in all, totally worth it. |
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3/21/2015 Route: South Slope Posted On: 3/21/2015, By: JQDivide Info: Hiked to about 13,000 in the chute, but got too steep and slick for microspikes. Three guys were about 2 hrs ahead of me, they had crampons. They skied down while I was still hiking. Heard them say it was icy. Most of the area has 2-4 inches of snow from Thursday on top of crusty/icy layer of snow. The South Slop has the most snow in that area. None on Bross. Snowmobilers with snowboards were taking turns in the bowl above Kite Lake and along the standard route. |
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3/15/2015 Route: East Slope Posted On: 3/15/2015, By: BillMiddlebrook Info: Skinned and skied the standard route today. The road is snow-covered and packed from the winter closure (Paris Mill area) all the way to Kite Lake. Snow on Democrat's east slopes until you reach 12,900', then it's on and off to the Democrat-Cameron saddle. The ridge leading to the top is mostly snow-covered and skiable from summit almost down to the saddle. Summit ridge has plenty of snow. Overall, the upper route doesn't have a lot of snow and low avalanche danger. |
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2/14/2015 Route: East Slope Posted On: 2/18/2015, By: T2000Haynes Info: Glorious day with 99% sun and a little wind. Headed up from the winter trailhead circa 9:00 am (give or take since I did a poor job watching the clock). Marched up to mt democrat and summitted around 12:20 and then cruised over to Cameron and Bross. I really wanted to grab Lincoln but the wind got pretty aggressive after 1 pm. I wore micro spikes almost the entire way and thought that was sufficient. Great, long day on my first winter 14er. Olly-the-dog-wonder dominated, per usual. |
