14er Report #8: Belford, Oxford, and The Beaver Incident (Late Summer, Northwest & West Ridges)

Sunrise on Missouri Mountain and Mt. Huron, from Mt. Belford Summit. Colorado, 2014

Sunrise on Emerald Peak, Missouri Mountain and Huron Peak, from Mt. Belford Summit. Colorado, 2014

Flickering fireflies…headlamps high above on the trail, also below, and a lone light flickering on Missouri Mountain summit. For the first time, I wasn’t the first to start out.

I really enjoy the meditative rhythm of steep hiking…the breathing, the steps…the world limited to the 30-foot radius of my headlamp. And, for you younger folks, imagine this (if you can!): I do these dark, early morning hours of hiking–all of the day’s effort, in fact–sans iPod. Unbelievable, I know. It’s just me, my head, and the mountains. I am there, very much in the present, thoughts wandering, sometimes to the profound, often to the mundane. I follow the rhythm of my boots and my full, deep breaths tasting the cold air…a bowl of bright stars above, a black cauldron of ink below.

I also enjoy that slow, wonderful revelation as the morning light starts to seep almost imperceptibly onto the eastern horizon and that empty inky-black cauldron finally gives way–very, very, very, slowly–to just a bit more landscape detail with each passing minute.

When I start out from the trailhead, I really have no idea what the forest, the tundra, the mountain valleys and ridges look like until twilight and the Earth’s rotation brings the Sun back to our hemisphere (although I do review the photos on 14ers.com).

For enormous beauty–and, of course, for photography–the best light is from first light through about an hour after dawn–depending on the cloud cover, of course.

Mt. Belford (14,197′) and Mt. Oxford (14,153′) Trip Report

Route:

On the standard Northwest Ridge Route up Mt. Belford, be prepared to go UP rapidly. You have just four miles to gain some 4,500 vertical feet. If I did it right, that converts to about a 21% grade. A cyclist certainly knows what terror that figure represents. The only brief relief you’ll have is the area near tree line above the cabin ruins as Missouri Gulch opens up. Above that, on Belford proper, there might be a total of 150 feet of the rest of the trail to the summit that levels out enough to relieve the pressure on your calves. At this point, ask yourself if your knees really want to go back down the same trail (there is another option…read on). In the dark on the way up, I spooked a mountain goat–and he certainly spooked me!–evidence that this is indeed steep terrain.

From the summit of Belford, the trail and the West Ridge Route over to Oxford is fairly obvious (unless under snow, I suppose). In-depth beta: Follow the ridge to Oxford.

Here is my recommendation for the return trip if you value your knees and wish to avoid or at least delay knee replacement surgery…

When you return toward Belford after summiting Oxford, you will have to climb all the way back up to Belford’s summit ridge–there is no avoiding that. However, once on the ridge (or maybe 50 vertical feet below the ridge), instead of turning right and going over the top of Belford and down the Northwest Ridge Route, angle left toward the south and you will eventually see a trail that will take you down to Elkhead Pass. From the Pass, just follow the trail down Missouri Gulch. This option, although almost two miles longer than the standard Belford descent, is quite scenic and the grade is gentle enough to keep your knees from exploding.

Here is a photograph of this alternate descent, looking SSW, taken on the ridge about 1/4 mile south of Belford’s summit:

Alternate Descent via Elkhead Pass. Mt. Belford, Colorado, 2014

Some advice on combination routes:

1) Only do the Missouri, Belford, Oxford triple if you are in super-trooper shape–it would be a very, long, tough day and you might still be above tree line during prime time for thunderbumpers. Just doing the double is not an easy hike. (In fact, some parties, after seeing what is involved in following the ridge over to Oxford, then climbing the 800 vertical feet on the return to Belford, elect to be happy with just the Belford summit for the day.)

2) To climb Oxford, you pretty much will end up climbing Belford to get there. So, the Belford-Oxford double, with a separate trip to climb Missouri, makes the most sense to me.

Timeline:

A midnight departure from Boulder.

Arrived at the Missouri Gulch Trailhead at about 2:25a.m. Be careful you don’t drive right by the parking area if arriving in the dark–it is easy to miss, so watch your mileage (it is about 7.5 miles up 390 from Highway 24).

After the usual parking lot star photography, I started hiking at 2:55a.m., passed a tent at the cabin ruins at about 4a.m., and was on the summit of Belford at 6:10a.m., just before a nuclear sunrise from right behind Mt. Oxford.

I left the Belford summit at 7:00a.m. and was on the summit of Oxford by 8:20a.m. By 9:30a.m. I was back on the Belford summit ridge and had found the trail leading down to Elkhead Pass.

The walk down to the trailhead from this high point via Elkhead Pass took about three hours, so I finally returned to my beaver-assaulted truck (see weird story below) at about 12:30p.m., just as I felt the first few raindrops of the day.

Weather Conditions:

Temps in the mid-40s at the start–warmth before the expected arrival today of a cold front.

At sunrise, the sky held just a few high, scattered, cirrus clouds. Throughout the morning, though, these few high cirrus thickened into an overcast and then another layer of lower cumulus began building, threatening rain by noon. Front arrival! Good reasons to get on the trail early.

Re the previous sentence, a booted footnote: As I was coming down Missouri Gulch, I saw a young man in shorts headed up toward Missouri Mountain. Given where he was and his pace, I suppose he would have made the ridge on Missouri at noon–perfect timing for a head-on collision with the cold rain (snow?) up there. My guess is he turned around at some point–assuming good judgment and lack of warm gear on his part, that is.

Trail Conditions:

No issues. Easy to follow with a headlamp on a moonless night. (Oh, did I say it is STEEP?)

Photography Issues:

–I may have found an acceptable, lightweight, backpacking tripod: the MeFOTO Day Trip Tripod. It doesn’t extend very high (24″ max) so I have to look for convenient boulders or tree stumps (or I simply grovel in the dirt) but it holds my D800 fairly well, even with a 70-200 f/4 lens. I tend to use it with legs splayed wide for best stability.

–Although the tripod above seems to work well, there is one sticky problem looking for a solution…It has a mini plate on it, so it won’t work with my standard-sized Arca Swiss plate which means swapping plates on my camera to use the smaller tripod. Then, with the small plate, I can’t attach my Black Rapid strap for walking (I modified the strap attachment, so it is not adaptable). By next trip, I need to find a fix.

–I still need to find an effective way to carry and protect my other two fairly large brick-like lenses (14-24, 24-70), yet have them quickly accessible.

Unusual Events / Comments:

–When I hit the trail at nearly three in the morning, there was already a group of four ahead of me. Another two guys (Corey and Todd) showed up in the parking lot just as I started walking. A veritable traffic jam–maybe I need to get out there earlier! Total number of folks I saw on the mountain: perhaps a dozen. (Beats the prime time conga line on Longs Peak, though!)

–The aspen and willows in the high country are beginning to fade to gold. Autumn has fallen…fall has autumned? Give it maybe two more weeks for the colors to reach apogee, thus sending thonged throngs of Colorado landscape photographers into orbit.

—Colorado 14er Senior Challenge summit count: 13 of the basic list of 58 (p. xxiii in Gerry Roach’s 14er “Bible”, Colorado Fourteeners, 3rd Ed.); 14 of the long list of 73 (pp. 347-348, with South Wilson added, also in Roach’s “Bible”.

Special Topic:

Finally, the story of the…Vicious Beaver Attack (VBA). Note to self: Don’t park next to beaver ponds. Of course, in the dark, this is hard to confirm, even if it were to somehow occur to me.

As it happens, the Missouri Gulch Trailhead parking lot sits adjacent to a very active beaver pond. When I returned to the trailhead after my hike, exhausted and ready to take off my meat-beater boots, I was shocked and appalled to see a fairly large aspen tree felled directly across my truck. Luckily, the potentially damaging fall was softened a bit by the parking lot fence (top railing was broken) and the many small branches at the top of the tree. Also, luckily, I had backed in, so the blow landed on the camper shell rather than the windshield.

Once I saw that no damage had occurred, it turned into a hilarious incident and much picture taking ensued.

The rest of the story is also a bit humorous.

A couple from the UK helped me push the tree off of my truck, but in doing so, the tip of the tree rolled onto and rested upon a soft-top jeep with Texas plates that was parked beside. After confirming there was no damage done, we decided to leave the tree there. That way, our Texas friends would return to find that they, too, were the target of a “VBA”–we wouldn’t want to deny them the fun of telling their friends back home a great story about their Colorado mountain trip, dontcha know!

Some photographs of the crime scene…