Missouri Gulch

Missouri Gulch

I took a three day weekend to backpack into the Missouri Gulch in the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness area with a buddy of mine from Kansas, Jeff Zuercher.  The plan was to backpack into the gulch, setup a base camp and bag Missouri Mountain on Friday.  Then summit Mount Belford and Mount Oxford on Saturday, camping again at our base camp, and then pack out on Sunday.

The lower triangle shows where we camped the first night and the upper triangle shows where we camped on night number two.

The bridge over Clear Creek at the trailhead

But despite starting shortly after sunup on Friday, by 1 PM, we found ourselves at about 12,750 looking up at the summit of Missouri Mountain realizing we weren't going to summit.  The trail up Missouri Mountain was covered in snow and ice and without ice axes, crampons or snowshoes, we were going to soon be in over our heads.

Very friendly marmot!

So we decided to save our energy for Mount Belford and Mount Oxford.  We spent the rest of the day exploring the gulch and lounging around camp.

Camp site on Friday

Supper time!

The view to the west from our campsite on Friday

The view to the south from our campsite on Friday

Missouri Mountain from the Belford trail

Friendly snowshoe hare that joined us in camp for a while

 The next morning, we set out at about 7:15 AM after a very bitter cold night and some hot coffee.  About 1,000 feet above our camp, as we switchbacked up the Belford ridge, we were glad we had micro-spikes.  There were several snow fields where the snow was wind blown and very hard packed.

Rick from the Belford trail with Missouri Mountain in the background

You can see what I mean about the trail up Missouri Mountain being snow covered

A good view of the lower portion of the gulch and the valley beyond from the Belford trail

The weather was perfect!  But when you stop moving, it can get cold.

Almost to the Belford summit!

Around mid morning or so, the snow really started to loosen up and in some places it was like trying to walk up hill on a a spilled Slurpee!

Missouri Mountain from the summit of Mount Belford

 We summitted Belford around 11 AM.  The weather was nothing but bluebird skies as far as the eye could see!

Mount Harvard from the summit of Mount Belford

Mount Oxford from the summit of Mount Belford

Jeff and I on the summit of Oxford!

 We made the traverse over to the Oxford summit by around 1 PM and still the weather was gorgeous!  Coming back up the east ridge of Mount Belford was the hardest part of the day with a pretty sharp incline and lots of slushy snow to slow us down.  We met a total of seven people on the trail all day long, which was pretty surprising considering the weather forecast had called for great weather on Saturday and Sunday.

The summit toaster on Oxford!

On the way back, we skirted the large rock outcropping on the summit of Mount Belford

We made it back to our camp and decided that we may be more comfortable at a slightly lower altitude with more shelter from the wind.  So we packed up camp and moved about 1,000 feet down to the remnants of the old shack and made a much warmer camp there for the night.

End of the trail

 The weather on Sunday was beautiful too and we packed out in less than an hour after a couple cups of hot coffee.  All said and done, it was an absolutely awesome trip!  Let's do it again soon!

All done!