Mt. Democrat

 Last summer LT expressed interest in climbing a 14er.  We did a few big hikes, but then with our trip to Croatia, we just ran out of summertime and never got around to it.  This summer, we set a date with some friends, rented a place in Fairplay and set out to do either Democrat or Lincoln.  We were only a few miles from the trailhead and so we set our alarms for 6 to get an early start.  The four of us piled into my friends minivan and off we went, GPS guiding us.  Or so we thought.  We got to our last turn, which was a turn onto a 4 wheel drive, steep, rugged "road".  After many times nearly getting stuck, we turned the minivan around and headed back to find a different path.  For those of you who have done 14ers, you are never the only car heading to the trail and the fact that there were ZERO other cars anywhere to be seen, should have been our first clue that we were on the wrong path.  We were out of range for our phones, but were determined that we had to be close.  Eventually we ended up on private property and found some Germans who had just moved to Colorado.  They basically told us they didn't know where it was, but that we weren't on the right path and to go back to Alma and ask.  We, once again, turned around and headed to the only store that was open in Alma.  Literally at the end of the block of the store was our turn up to the trailhead.  By this point it was 9:15 and we had to park .85 miles from the trailhead.  Eventually we made it to the map at the trailhead and headed up what we thought was the right trail only to be told by some hikers that we were in fact on the wrong trail and needed to go back down.  At 9:45, we finally found our way on the right path, nearly 3 hours after these kids had woken up (after going to bed past 10:30 the night before).  They were troopers through the whole ordeal and summited Mount Democrat with no problems.