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Having failed on an attempt of Mt. Princeton exactly one month before to the day, I decided on an easier winter/early spring climb. The best option seemed to be in the Mosquito range given the higher elevations of highways and winter accessibility of the trailheads. The original plan was to park at the base of Roberts Road and begin the climb from there. As I started up the road, a pack of dogs didn't seem very pleased that I was there. Just about every house up the road to the old Quartzville 4x4 road had occupants. I decided to drive up the road and park at the Moose Creek Trailhead instead. I still retained my plan to climb via the Quartzville road, and it worked out pretty well starting from this point as I could still gain 3,000 vertical feet. In the meantime, however, I had wasted an hour and fifteen minutes looking for a starting point that didn't involve parking on private property. I managed to get started at late 7:50 a.m.
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The hike to the old road went by soon enough, and then the real climbing began. It didn't take long to encounter a lot of snow drifts over the road, much like my experience on Mt. Princeton. In the early morning, the snow was pretty solid, and there wasn't too much post-holing to deal with. On the way back around 11:00 am, crossing these drifts became an exercise in self-discipline. Above treeline, there wasn't much snow to speak of. As seen in the photo on the right, the road was easy to follow and remained at class 1 difficulty. The purpose of this route is to climb up the basin to the Cameron Ampitheater (top-center of photo) and reach the Bross-Cameron saddle. The Ampitheater is not steep by any means (nothing like Lincoln Ampitheater), though it does entail some careful planning as far as the direction you choose to ascend it.
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| Fortunately there were only a few snowfields to cross; nothing very deep or expansive. The unfortunate side to this arrangement is not being able to glissade down. I was able to reach the saddle from the basin in about 25 minutes. There are several scree fields on the way up that were easily avoided by staying on talus or snow. If not for the fact that there wasn't a definable trail, I would almost classify the route up the saddle as class 1 as well. The wind had been blowing all day and it was a little less pleasant on the saddle. The remainder of the hike is about as easy as it looks, (see picture on the left) with very little elevation gain spread over a long distance. This is probably one of the most leisurely connecting saddles in Colorado. Lincoln's South Face is magnificent from this vantage point. Meeting back up with the road, it took about 15 minutes to reach the summit.
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The wind was really blowing on the summit around 10:30. My face became entirely numb and I had trouble keeping my eyes open. Bross has a very large and flat summit. Right as you reach the top of the road, there is a big cairn structure (seen on the right filled with snow). This is the highpoint, though I went to check out another cairn about 300 yards to the east. I'm not sure why that one is there, other than perhaps wind protection. In any case, I was glad to have a successful ascent to start off the year.
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