The Decalibron: Effort, Praise, Pride, Peace
CO 14ers Trip-Report Part IV
Aug 16, 2025 | ~5:45 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. MT
Highest Summit (Mt. Lincoln): 14,293 ft.
Route: The Decalibron | Total Gain: 3,500 ft. | Distance: 7.50 mi.
I start hiking at 5:45 a.m., and I am well behind the crowd. Ahead of me, a winding string of headlamps looks like snow-CATs grooming trails overnight. The bobbing bulbs around me and ahead of me account for all the hikers who camped in the campsites near the trailhead, those who slept in their cars in the lot overnight, and those who woke up hours earlier in Leadville or Buena Vista or Silverthorne to drive in this morning. Last night, I camped right on the shore of Kite Lake, which lies below the four fourteen-thousand-foot peaks I will climb today: Mt.s Democrat, Cameron, Lincoln, and Bross. Located just outside Alma, CO (the highest incorporated town in North America, at an elevation of 10,578 feet), the DeCaLiBron is the only four-in-one 14er route. Its economy and accessibility make it irresistible to peak-baggers like me, hence there being a crowd before sunrise on a Saturday.
Only ten minutes in, I turn off my headlamp so that my eyes can adjust to enjoy the pale-blue, pre-dawn light seeping into this south-facing bowl. When the light changes to a dim and diffuse yellow, I know the sun has crested the horizon, but it is has yet to rise over the ridge-line. I start to see baby marmots surfing the rolling piles of scree, and their many cries reverberate throughout the bowl like birdsong. When their cheeks aren’t full of dewy grass, the baby marmots chirp, as if to coax the sun up farther, faster.
At the summit of Mt. Democrat, I meet a group of fellow Kansas Citians who compliment my rock-balance. Almost everyone goes clockwise on this route, so the entire early-morning cohort is here, except for those who are already on their way over to Cameron. On any 14er, you’re bound to see many hikers carrying cardboard signs as props for their momentous summit-photos, with the peak’s name and elevation written on them in Sharpie. On the summit of Democrat, I learn that hikers on the Decalibron carry two double-sided signs, one side for each of the four peaks. Several groups unfold their cardboard rectangles and take their first summit-photos of the day.
Three of the four peaks—Democrat, Cameron, and Bross—hang in the sky like Orion’s belt; the east–west line buckles in the middle, with Cameron jutting out to the north. Then, Lincoln is the outlier, farther north. Together, the four would make a Dionysian constellation instead: an upside-down martini glass.
From the Summit of Mt. Cameron, I can see how steep and narrow the ascent is to Lincoln, which seems the most dramatic of the four peaks. It looks like a staircase to nowhere; the earth falls way from it suddenly on all sides but one. I barrel through the saddle-trough between Cameron and Lincoln and start to ascend switchbacks so narrow that I can’t pass anyone and must step aside to allow for downhill traffic.
Lincoln’s summit has about the same surface area as two pontoon boats hitched together in a cove, and both boats are at capacity. I canvas the small area, catching the views to the starboard, bow, port, and stern, and I spot some litter. I have a habit of picking up trash on trails when I see it; most often, it’s a corner of a plastic wrapper from a protein bar, or a hair-tie. This time, the litter is one of those cardboard signs. It is lying near the brink of a steep chute, shielded from the wind by short rock walls on either side. The chute looks like the start of a tube-slide at a waterpark, and the ground there is loose dirt. Whomever the sign had flown from must have decided it wasn’t worth the risk to retrieve it. When the wind changes that cardboard will be blown down a couple thousand feet to the forest, to rot there. After feeling into it for a moment and creating a plan, I decide that the risk is not too great.
I ask a resting stranger if I can borrow his hiking pole, and then I step onto the ledge of the couloir’s left wall. The ledge is only as wide as the sole of one shoe, so I lean on the hiking pole out to my side and sway back and forth, as if walking on stilts, to advance. When I get close enough to the cardboard sign, I try to drag it back with the pole; then someone behind me shouts, “Stab it!”, which is a smarter idea. I skewer the sign successfully and reverse my movements back along the ledge until I reach ground that is neither steep nor slick.
The man who lent his pole to me calls me a good Samaritan, and when I donate the hole-punched sign to a family for their pictures, they praise me for my efforts. Whatever risk there had been was worth these rewards.
I descend Mt. Lincoln and saddle on over to Mt. Bross with pride, feeling like a knight whom the king had just permitted to wield the infamous blade Decalibron. One more summit remained for me to conquer, the easternmost point on the rim of that martini glass. Mt. Bross, in contrast to Lincoln's pointed summit, is broad, flat, and covered with these bulbous green-and-purple succulents somehow thriving above fourteen thousand feet. From Bross's summit, I see Kite Lake clearly, and I am reminded of how simple place-names tend to be. It's a matte-blue rhombus lying limp in the grass, complete with a string that is the dirt road leading away from the trailhead. At this height, I feel like a father out playing with my son. He's downfield holding the string, and I call to him: "You've got it! Run back this way, against the wind, and it will go!" I'm standing over my son's flightless kite, coaxing it up. ❛❜
Thank you for reading,
Co 14-ers Trip-Report Series Contents
Part I: Quandary Peak
Part II: Mt. Sherman
Part III: Mt. Bierstadt
Part IV: The Decalibron
Part V: Mt. Elbert
Part VI: Mt. Sunshine via Redcloud Peak
Great pictures. Keep up the good work.