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Having retreated from my attempt to consecutively climb both Quandary Peak and the Mount Lincoln Ampitheater in the same day before, I left Mount Lincoln for another day. The route is a class 2+, and 4 miles roundtrip. Leah and I still thought it would be easy, considering the distance. Starting out at 8:00 a.m., we figured we'd by down by 12:30. This actually didn't occur until 2:15. Pulling into the parking area on the west side of Montgomery Reservoir, we crossed the bridge over to the trailhead and set out on our way. The trail is moderately easy to follow up until the talus field, upon which your intuition must take over. Scrambling up a few hundred feet, several sections that require moves of some class above class 2 begin. There actually are a couple trails that we stumbled upon with our routefinding, but they are not continuous.
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The headwall that must be overcome is the crux of this approach. A waterfall runoff is always somewhere close to the left (east) after the first few hundred vertical feet if you are ascending the route properly. At some points, there is some bushwhacking required, and in some areas, actually welcome as means of securing handholds. Leah and I tried out some class 4 sections for the fun of it, thinking it would be a short day. We finally topped out into the morraine at 12,000'. The next 45 minutes was easy, with little elevation gain. The route is all talus, however. The route steepens again when approaching 12,600', and this steepness is not all that bad, except that it is all loose scree. Every step taken ends up to be 1/2 a step because of the slippery nature of the terrain (there is no trail by the way). On the left is a view down towards Montgomery Reservoir.
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The scree 'looseness' continues for another 1,000 vertical feet, and is not particularly enjoyable. This section took us almost two hours. Finally reaching a more suitable incline, we could see the rounded point of Mount Lincoln, and figured that we had gone off-route to the North about 300 yards. It didn't really matter at this point, as we were still close to the trail that originates from Quartzville Trailhead. Our summit approach was from the North, and even though there was no trail, we managed to do just fine. On the right is the summit of Mount Lincoln as seen from the north at about 13,800'. There was some snow, which was the first I had seen since July. We ended up taking advantage of what little snow there was later by glissading down parts of the drainage to Montgomery Reservoir.
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It was nice to actually sit down on the summit and take a break feeling like something was achieved. The views of Bross and Democrat from here are fantastic. Quandary peak is in full view as well. The time we were on the summit was around noon. Wow, four hours to go two miles...that is pretty saddening. I learned not underestimate a peak's time requirements solely on the basis of distance and class. I would have regretted trying to go all the way on this route after climbing Quandary.
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