Saturday June 27, 2009-Missouri Gulch Trip: Mt. Belford, Mt. Oxford, and Missouri Mountain

Our plans for the weekend of June 27th and 28th originally consisted of bicycling in the MS150 road ride from Broomfield to Fort Collins, CO. However, in the process of organizing our team with friend Troy the registration had closed. I had already received Saturday off, making a four day weekend, so we decided to take advantage of this and enjoy a long backpacking/peak bagging weekend in the Missouri Gulch area west of the Clear Creek Reservoir near historic towns Vicksburg and Winfield. Our hike started from the Missouri Gulch Trailhead where below we are all pictured excited for our weekend!

Toby hikes in his own food/treats and usually helps pack out trash.

Brian registering us in at the trailhead just after crossing the bridge across Clear Creek. I ended up working about 6 hours anyway, trying to finish the newsletter so it was ready to send out on July 1, so we didn't start hiking until 5:00 pm.

I decided to try-out some trekking poles this weekend, to see what all the hub-bub was about, and to educate myself in order to sell them better to our customers. They were great on the backpack in and out, but I didn't like them so much when climbing the peaks. "To each there own!"

We reached these cabin remains after an hour of hiking, and from what we had heard from our friend, Spencer, there were some good camping spots further up the trail where it began to level out at the basin. Thankfully this time of the year we have light until almost 9:00 pm so we didn't have to set up camp in the dark.

Another half hour past the cabin, we found some great camping spots, nestled amongst trees with no one insight. Just us, the deer, chirping birds, and the well-fed marmots!

Our night one camp spot. We used the trekking poles to set-up our tent vestibule as an awning. It was fantastic!

Pretty blue wildflowers that speckled the meadow.

HELLO! Happy to be outside enjoying a break from work!

Our view from the tent just as the sun was beginning to set and the clouds were changing color.

Brian and Toby enjoying the cool evening while waiting a couple minutes for our JetBoil to boil water for our Veggie Lasagna dinner and hot tea.

Brian's squishy bowl with Irish Breakfast Tea...Yum!

The nearby stream, snowmelt-runoff, where we filtered water.

These are the beautiful wildflowers lining the stream beneath the willows. So vibrant!

The sun setting on Mt. Belford above, and below the clouds fiery orange to the west of us. It was such a relaxing evening as we drifted off to sleep to the last chirping birds and faint sounds of the rushing stream.

Sunday June 28, 2009- Mt. Belford & Mt. Oxford

JetBoil Personal Cooking System

SUNDAY morning after a quick oatmeal breakfast and hot tea, thanks to our borrowed shop JetBoil, we headed up the trail with one stream crossing from the melting couloirs on the Northwest facing slope. The trail switchbacks steeply up the Northwest ridge of Mt. Belford, as you can see drawn in below, where it was rather windy and cool until finally reaching the warmth of the morning sun.

This picture is from the previous evening as the sun was setting. It consists of short switchbacks, but really clear-cut and well-maintained. Props to the trail crews!

Here's some carefully positioned steps on the Mt. Belford Trail...very posh.

The last hike to the top, easy snow crossing, you can see the summit of Mt. Belford at the top of the picture-knob like. Toby tried to roll around in the snow like he usually does, but it was too hard still as it was only about 8:20 am.

Brian signing us in at the summit of Mt. Belford at 14,197'. We were on the summit long enough for Brian to sign us in and snap a quick photo. It was 1.2 miles across the southeast ridge over to Mt. Oxford with almost a 700' drop/rise in elevation mid-saddle, so we needed to keep houghing it.

After hiking down the South side summit of Mt. Belford this was our view toward Mt. Oxford and the ridge we'd have to hike to get there. There was only one group of three guys ahead of us and a few small groups or individuals behind us.

Brian pausing to wait for Tobers and I as we scrambled down the rocky ridge on the first half of the saddle.

Mt. Oxford Geological Survey Marker- 14,153'

Toby and I walked across the summit to what looked like a higher point on Mt. Oxford, at least Brian thought, but it was not. I think he was just trying to keep me busy while we waited for him to finish snacking.

It took us about an hour to hike the ridge and summit Mt. Oxford, and we were hauling pretty fast. We crossed paths with the group ahead of us as they were coming down and they said," you guys must have someplace to be...we've been watching you haul up the mountain!" We kind of laughed and we're thinking already that we should have had an earlier morning start, so we were trying to make up time as to not get caught in a storm.

As we were sitting here on the summit of Mt. Oxford, for only about 10 minutes refueling, signing in, and snapping a few photos...we noticed the clouds beginning to accumulate West of us. So, we booked it back down & up the ridge back to the summit of Mt. Belford and back down the steep switchbacks to the comforts of camp.

It rained after we'd been in camp for about 30 minutes or so, so we took advantage of it and took a nice long nap. We then enjoyed an afternoon of sunbathing, card playing, more naps, and a nice freeze-dried chili mac dinner.

Monday-June 29, 2009- Missouri Mountain

Monday morning after another round of oatmeal and hot tea we set off for Missouri Mountain. Shortly after the trail junction for Mt. Belford Trail and Elkhead Pass Trail we encountered our first stream crossing. The wide rushing body of water was at first intimidating, but we threw on our gaiters and slowly crossed being weary of icy rocks. We were pretty stoked when our feet stayed dry thanks to our waterproof shoes and gaiters...it's nice when your gear actually works properly! We had one more similar sized stream crossing in the next mile, and then a few smaller ones as we neared the base of Missouri Mountain.

There are several snow fields/couloir crossings on the hike up, where we encountered sufficient kick steps, but they were icy and an ice axe would have been nice. Once we reached the saddle and began to ascend the ridge south to the peak, we had to navigate through some technical hard snow patches, where an ice axe would have been useful. Upon reaching the 14,067 foot summit, we had such majestic views full of slightly snow capped peaks, green mountain sides, and several mountain lakes. BEAUTIFUL!!!

Brian and Tobers, as we near the summit. There were only two other guys hiking Missouri that day, and instead of hiking the standard route like we did, they climbed with ice axes up the couloir beneath the summit. They reached the summit about 20-30 min before us and then one snowboarded and the other kick-stepped/glissaded down the same couloir they hiked up. You can see them to the left of Brian...very very tiny people.

Missouri Mountain Geological Survey Marker- 14,067'

The survey marker was on that square rock sitting in front of us, seemed strange, and not very long-lasting..hmm? It was an absolutely bluebird day with few puffy white clouds, so we ended up staying on the summit for about an hour, which is much longer than we normally do but it was hard to resist.

View down from the summit into the Missouri Basin (Northward), you can see Ben kick-stepping down at the very bottom middle above the rocks.

Here's Toby and I crossing one of the hard snow fields along the ridge on our descent. This is where I would have liked to have had an ice axe.

Brian, crossing the upper snowfield heading down the mountain. Thankfully at this time of the day it still wasn't warm enough for us to posthole through the snow! We had a quick hike back our base camp, Brian got water for our lunch while I cleaned up and organized our gear to pack up after lunch. Toby was pretty spent and crashed in the car as soon as we got there, I actually had to lift him out of the car when we got home. That was one tired pup, actually we were all REALLY exhausted, but that didn't stop us from seeing the Transformers: The Revenge of the Fallen movie over in Dillon. We are SO GRATEFUL for being able to live here in the mountains and experience such memorable adventures!