8/24/03 – Missouri Mountain, Iowa Peak & Emerald Peak – West Ridge, North Ridge & North Face

8.2 miles, 4230'


The clock ran out on Missouri Mountain and the Sawatch 14ers this weekend. Originally, Erin and I were interested in attempting Snowmass Mountain, but we were deterred from that long hike by weather forecasts that indicated the monsoon patterns were on for the weekend (we want to be able to enjoy Snowmass as much as possible). So Missouri it was!

On Saturday, Kurt Traskos called us from Vail. He was considering one of many centennial Sawatch 13ers for a Sunday climb, so we let Kurt in on our plans to attempt, along with Missouri, Emerald Peak and Iowa Peak. Kurt was reasonably hesitant. He had settled in on Mount Hope, a clearly attainable goal no matter what the weather does after noon. Emerald, the ranked centennial of the pair, wasn't such a sure-shot, especially from the Missouri Gulch TH that Erin and I were planning on using. Kurt volunteered to check out the Rockdale TH to see if his Tahoe could handle the crossing of Clear Creek and the 4WD road on to Clohesy Lake. Kurt called us back a couple hours later. He had driven all the way to the 4WD parking and back! We made plans to meet early that morning, and Erin and I set off at 1:00 a.m. to meet up with Kurt at the Missouri Gulch TH.

We found Kurt's phenomenally dirty SUV at the trailhead and woke him through his open window at 3:45. Kurt drove us to Rockdale and then through Clear Creek, which had far less water than what Erin and I saw there last September, and up the moderately rough road to Clohesy Lake. We drove the 4WD road approximately 3 miles to what we believed to be the TH. This treeless parking area has the wilderness register and such, but one can drive a little further, perhaps another quarter-mile, to the true road closure. Either of these parking areas, I believe, is closer to Clohesy Lake than the Dawson and Roach guides indicate, which led to our routefinding error of the day.

We hit the trail at 4:40 and quickly made our way along the road. The roads and trails get slightly confusing near the lake and we ended up on some sort of a cut-off trail to the Missouri Mountain trail. At the junction between this cutoff trail and another trail, though we had our suspicions, we weren't sure that we had indeed found the Missouri trail and descended back down to the main road. This we traveled for probably a good half-mile before we heard the call of the Lake Fork of Clear Creek to our side. We had clearly overshot the lake, and we determined that the trail we abandoned earlier must have been the Missouri Trail. We retraced our steps and began to make progress again.

The Missouri Trail heads steeply up to the basin embraced by Missouri and Iowa, sometimes adjacent to the small creek that drains it but never crossing it. Day broke as we reached the basin, and we could see two of our goals for the day, as well as La Plata Peak and Mount Hope to our north. Kurt's attention, though, was focused on North Apostle and Ice Mountain, which were now visible above and beyond the lower ridge that connects Huron Peak to the Continental Divide. Kurt climbed those two of the Three Apostles a couple weeks earlier and enjoyed our remarkable perspectives of those centennial peaks all day.

I was feeling as lousy and unenergetic as I had all season, but I managed to keep pace with Erin and Kurt. Despite our 40-minute detour, the steepness of the ascent to Missouri had allowed us to get back on 1000' per hour pace. Views of Mount Huron, La Plata Peak, and Mount Hope opened as we ascended. Missouri's West Ridge is an exception to the rule in the Lake Fork's drainage. Surrounded by scree slopes of purported misery, this ridge is grassy and a joy to climb. We made great time and soon had joined the standard route from Elkhead Basin. Our perspective on the Apostles had improved dramatically. One person had beaten us to the top, a nice gentleman from Telluride. He had made over twenty ascents of both Mount Sneffels and Wilson Peak! We chatted for a bit just a few feet from the summit, but Missouri whispered from over my shoulder.

I hadn't completed a range since Pikes in December and Erin hadn't since she and I stood on Sherman over a year earlier, but at 8:00 a.m. we stood triumphant on the very spot that Kurt had finished his run of the Sawatch 14ers. We spent an enjoyable thirty minutes soaking in the views. To our west the Elk Range commanded our attention, all its fourteeners in view. In binoculars, Kurt noted it was like he could touch Castle Peak and Cathedral Peak, their bands looking incredible. To our south, the Crestones and Kit Carson were amazingly also in view. Perhaps it's so long to that summer haze! All told, we counted 30+ fourteeners from this lofty vantage in the heart of the Rockies. More immediately, we were dazzled by Harvard and Columbia and UN 13,762, a bicentennial that we agreed needs a name (though it'll never get one courtesy of that lousy wilderness naming restriction). We've dubbed it "Silver King Peak" after Silver King Lake, which this twin-summitted beauty embraces.

In the immediate vicinity were many wonderful sights. To the southwest, Taylor Park was completely socked in with low-lying clouds. Residents of that area would have known only a dreary day even though the surrounding mountains, among them the Fossil Ridge Wilderness, were under clear blue skies. To our east and seemingly the size of Rhode Island, Missouri Basin captivated us with vast expanses of lush greens, pocked with turquoise tarns. Rounded but at the same time steep and dramatic, Emerald Peak has held an allure for me since we first saw it during our trip on Belford three months previous. Kurt was now feeling Emerald's pull, as well.

We packed our things and, via Missouri's scree-covered south ridge, quickly reached the Missouri-Iowa saddle where I took an altimeter reading. As we neared a crumbled outcrop atop a couloir in Iowa's northwest face, we saw a guy below us making his way across Missouri Basin and dwarfed by his surroundings. On the way up to Iowa, we made a couple of animal sightings. First, we saw crickets of unusual size and shape, a kind that we had never observed. They came in at least four different colors, and I guess we must have been seeing only females that day because they all had lengthy ovipositors protruding from their abdomens. Some quick research today revealed that ovipositors are used for depositing eggs into the earth and are often mistaken for stingers, an error we made that day. Anyway, the size and proliferation of these crickets must mean abundant meals for nine of the fattest ptarmigans we had ever seen! We stumbled onto this group of mostly females just before reaching Iowa's summit. They are already getting prepared for winter: their feathered legs are filling in, and they were just beginning to change over to their white coat. On Iowa's summit, I noted that my altimeter had measured only 260' of elevation change since the saddle, so in my book I'm dropping Iowa's position from a soft-ranked peak to a named but unranked peak. While on Iowa, a guy from Wisconsin joined us. He had recently moved to Colorado and was clearly loving his new home.

The descent to the Emerald-Iowa saddle went well, and we noted that our Missouri Basin guy had made the gentle climb to this saddle and was about halfway up Emerald's final summit push. I wanted to catch him, desiring to be the first up one of our two centennials of the day, but he kept his plod consistent and never allowed us to catch up. On the summit I said hello to my competitor and signed the register. I recognized his name, though; it was Brian Schultz of Minnesota and FourteenerWorld. He didn't know it, but a trip report of his had been instrumental in Erin's and my climb of Bierstadt's wonderful east ridge last year. I didn't know it, but my Chicago Basin report had helped him with some logistics and dining during a recent trip to the Weminuche Wilderness. Plus, he had brought Kurt's North Apostle and Ice Mountain trip report along with him for a climb of those two mountains the day before! Brian had been in Colorado for a few days, the primary impetus being that he had been selected for the CMC Culebra-Red Mountain climb. He had already climbed Culebra, but he's climbed a good many of the centennial 13ers and made good progress during this trip. It was great to meet yet another fellow from the Internet. We're quite the small community!

From Emerald's summit, we received our first view of Emma Burr Mountain directly to our south. Erin's family has a lengthy history in Colorado, so it isn't unreasonable to think that this mountain is named after one of her predecessors. One day we hope to know the history behind this peak's name for certain. This stately peak is the highest ranked summit on the Continental Divide between "Silver King Peak" and Carson Peak all the way down in the San Juans near Sunshine Peak! It's also the highest point on the Divide whatsoever between UN 13,580 C, a soft-ranked peak near Mount Harvard, and the north arm of "Creede Crest" (UN 13,895). That's over 118 or 160 miles of the Divide (!!), and Emma Burr holds this honor well. The peak was beautifully framed by the steep walls lining North Texas Creek. We also saw that the main Texas Creek drainage was filled with low-lying clouds, just like Taylor Park, though these clouds would soon finally dissipate.

Clouds higher in the atmosphere were beginning to build as the clock approached 11:00, and we exchanged goodbyes with Brian. He was heading on to Iowa Peak and perhaps Missouri on his way back to the Missouri Gulch TH before flying out of Denver the next day. We, on the other hand, had a loop hike to complete. We descended from Emerald on its south ridge, which is quite gentle for a quarter-mile before it descends in a ragged torrent to its saddle with "Silver King Peak." We hiked the quarter-mile and then turned west and headed down scree to a gentle segment of the Continental Divide. From here we hiked roughly along the Divide, past the ruins of an old mining cabin and toward the west end of the Lake Fork's basin, where we found an old road that would take us back to Clohesy Lake. On the way, we took a picture of the dramatic western side of Emerald, the same angle featured in Roach's 13er book. To our south, the aptly named Pear Lake in the North Texas Creek basin demanded a second look. To our west, I couldn't help but be attracted to a rough ridge that leads to UN 13,462 A's summit. Aside from a couple of tough-looking notches, this ridge looks quite doable. Some other time perhaps. The old road expertly weaved through rocky and grassy terrain and led us down to the Lake Fork. From there, it's an easy couple of miles back to the lake, and we noted with some embarrassment the point where we reached on the old early that morning.

We passed the old cabin of the man who used to own Clohesy Lake and surrounding areas. It's now the property of the U.S. Government. Quite the locale to have called home! It wasn't long before we reached Kurt's car. We had impeccable timing, as it only began to rain when we arrived. Kurt drove us down to the Missouri Gulch TH, and then in two vehicles we drove down to Coyote Cantina in Johnson Village, Erin's and my second visit in a week.

What a marvelous day in the wilderness we experienced! The weather held out for us, and we got to enjoy some of the finest views the Sawatch have to offer. A wonderful capper to our 14er experiences in that range. It was also great not to be denied a bonus 13er, as Erin and I have had bad luck with that lately. Many thanks to Kane Engelbert for recommending the Lake Fork's basin for its beauty. Eight fourteeners left!