5/16/03 – Mount Belford & Mount Oxford – West Slopes, West Ridge

9.5 miles, 6000'


Ryan and I have had our eye on these peaks for a while now, and after reading about successful trips on the pair this winter, we thought Belford and Oxford would be the perfect mountains to try for our first 14ers of the year. We left the house at around 2:00 a.m., and Ryan’s Prizm was easily able to drive to the Missouri Gulch Trailhead. We arrived around 5:00 just before the sky began to lighten, and we saw another car had beaten us to the trailhead. After a quick breakfast, we began getting ready, and soon after the guy in the car next to us emerged. He was considering not bringing snowshoes since he had read on SummitPost that there wasn’t much snow below treeline.

As we discussed it, the sky began to lighten and we were able to see the lack of snow on Pecks Peak’s north ridge. Conditions looked promising, and with a smile we all decided to leave our snowshoes behind. The other hiker quickly tightened his shoes and was on his way. Since he took off ahead of us, we had these two peaks to ourselves for most of the day.

We checked in at the register and saw someone had done Belford, Oxford, and Missouri on May 13, however the trailhead hadn’t seen too much use this year. After crossing the bridge over Clear Creek, we headed up the switchbacks and were able to enjoy glimpses of a brilliant sunrise before getting deeper into Missouri Gulch. There were patches of snow along the trail, but for the most part it was dry until we got around 11,000 ft. The patches began to get much bigger and we occasionally postholed, but this was infrequent on the way up. The most difficult slope we encountered all day was in the morning on a low-angled, icy slope a little below treeline.

As we made our way through the trees, the gulch began to open up. Instead of following the trail after treeline, which was filled with deeper snow, we made our way to slightly higher ground to the east. Missouri Mountain’s steep, snow covered north slopes came into view and caught the morning light. Its north ridge contained a large cornice and there were few slides on its west slopes.

Making our way to the base of Belford’s west slopes where the CFI trail begins, we took our first break. We chose that spot because we had seen a pika sitting on a rock further off. Earlier in the trip we had seen several marmots, including two that were sharing a hole and had to dig through snow to come out into the overworld. It was great to see nature waking up again, and soon we were treated to loud shouts from ptarmigans. At first one would yell; then we’d be surrounded a whole chorus. They didn’t seem to care too much about our presence, and every so often, one (or a pair of) ptarmigan would take to the air. I guess it must be mating season for them because their calls reminded me of the frantic whistle my old bird would get when she was excited.

We were getting pretty cold at this point after laughing at the ptarmigan and snacking for around 20-30 minutes, when I saw a creature I’d never seen before – an ermine. It’s a member of the weasel family and looked to be about 8-10 inches long. It was very thin and had lost its white, winter coat and was mostly brown, though its belly still was white. It had a long tail with a black tip that appeared to be wider than most of the tail. It was the most inquisitive and erratic creature I’ve ever seen. It bounced around the snowfield we were sitting near, checking out various things and never coming close to traveling in a direct path. It got up on its hind legs a few times as it went to check out the pika we had found. The pika quickly took off down its hole, but right around that time the ptarmigan started up again. So the ermine ran over towards where they were, and we watched it eventually bounce out of view.

Hands and toes freezing, we took off for Belford's slopes. Snow had fallen the day before, but it was soft, shallow and easy to walk through. We followed the CFI trail up the slopes when we could and made our way up to the saddle where we were greeted by a rude gust of wind. We attained the shoulder near the summit, and we tried to avoid the wind by wrapping around the north side of the mountain, while admiring the view of Missouri Mountain. It wasn’t long before we were greeted by a view of the summit. I don’t believe I ever knew how rocky and orange the summit of Belford was until then – I always assumed it’d be a lump much like Oxford turned out to be.

We made it to the top of Belford by 11:00 a.m. and dropped down the other side about 10 feet to take advantage of a natural wind shelter near the summit. We signed the register and saw many names we recognized including John Prater (twice) and Mike Via. After a minute or two we saw the hiker from the morning making his final push back to Belford from Oxford. We talked to him briefly since he was in a hurry, and discovered that he had climbed Harvard and Columbia in 2002, a week before Ryan and I did Harvard. Unbeknownst to our new acquaintance, he had actually helped convince Ryan and I to stay away from the Harvard/Columbia traverse last year. Because of all the snow and postholing he endured, he wrote in the summit register, "TRAVERSE SUCKED!!". It really hit home how small this community is after reading the register and talking to this guy. Perhaps someday soon we’ll run into him again.

We said goodbye, put away our food, and got ready for the trip over to Oxford. The saddle between the two was snowy for the most part only on Belford’s side, but the snow was soft and we had no problems traversing it with our poles for balance. We made good time and were on the summit of Oxford by 12:15. For good measure we touched a second, small lump near the summit, took a few pictures, including one of the Buffalo Peaks, and then headed back to Belford.

Belford’s summit was no longer windy, and at the top we were greeted by two guys from NY that had recently graduated from a college in Chicago. They had decided to spend a little over a week exploring the area and were camped at 11,000' off the Pine Creek Trail and had not seen anyone since they arrived. They were fishing and peak bagging depending on weather and had just completed Oxford and Belford. They asked about snow conditions, routes, and Missouri. We weren’t really in a position to give them advice, but it was fun talking to them, and they seemed like really nice guys.

On the way down Belford, the snow on the ridge had melted considerably. We tried to walk on the slick, muddy trail when possible and plungestepped quickly through several snowfields. It’s a tradeoff with this kind of snow. We descended the 2000 ft. from Belford’s summit to Missouri Gulch in literally 30 minutes, but it would take us more than twice that long to descend the next 500 ft. The snow had softened considerably in the gulch and we tried to follow existing tracks when possible. Snowshoes would have helped in places, but there was a lot of rotten snow, too. We were pretty wet by the time we made it back to the car around 4:30.

It was a great hike and highly recommended for this time of year. The views from Belford are spectacular (in particular of Harvard and Emerald), and it was fun to try to pick out as many peaks as possible. Every mountain range has it’s charm, and the Sawatch certainly affords great views being in the middle of things. I can’t wait to go back and complete the range a little later in the year. The only one we have left is Missouri, and we'll probably bag Emerald and Iowa along the way.