Missouri, Iowa, Emerald, Oxford, Belford

With just a few remaining Centennial 13ers in the Sawatch range, I decided to go after Emerald Peak.  I had been avoiding this peak because getting there requires being above treeline for a long time and the weather hadn’t been cooperating.  Now the easiest way to get to Emerald is from the Rockdale trailhead, which requires a good 4WD vehicle to get to.  With my little Outback, I was relegated to the second best option which is the Missouri Gulch trailhead.  This is a popular 14er trailhead, providing access to Missouri, Belford, and Oxford (I just did the Belford/Oxford hike back in June).

Right next to Emerald Peak is Iowa Peak – a named 13er, but it doesn’t have enough prominence to receive an official rank (it only rises 260′ above the saddle with its higher neighbor Missouri).  Nevertheless, I felt obligated to climb it.  Now the easiest way to climb these two peaks from Missouri Gulch is to head over Elkhead Pass (13,200′), travel cross country to the two peaks, and then return over Elkhead Pass.  As it turns out, going over Missouri Mountain and down the ridge to Iowa Peak is only a couple hundred extra feet of elevation while providing a more interesting route and allowing you to brag about bagging another 14er.  So the plan was to go in over Missouri, bag the two 13ers, and return over Elkhead Pass.  Now it just so happens that from 13,200′ at Elkhead Pass you are less than 1000′ below the summit of Belford which is kinda sorta on the way out.  And if you are on Belford, for another 1400′ one can also climb Oxford, which is a little out of the way but it would be kind of embarrassing to climb Belford and not climb Oxford.  And getting those two peaks would let you brag even more.  So with that in the back of my mind, I set my alarm for 4:40 AM and went to bed.

After thinking about it some more, I turned my clock back to 5:30 AM before falling asleep.  I am not a fan of early starts.  Thus, I wasn’t on the trail until 6:00 AM the following morning.  It was just light enough that I didn’t need a headlamp.  My goal for today was to try and pace myself and eat a little better.  Typically I hike at two speeds – on or off.  It is better, however, to keep an easier pace – this will keep you fresher and stronger over the course of a day.  I also lots of times don’t really stop to eat anything (I often get to the summit and have eaten nothing more than a pack of GU and a few peanuts or something like that).  So my goal was to move at a slower pace and eat more consistently early on.

The trail starts with about 1500′ of fairly steep ascent.  I started the morning eating some Frosted Mini-wheats and a pack of GU.  Nothing like some vanilla GU to get your day started.  On the initial ascent I made sure to take it easy – I would even pace myself off some other groups of hikers on the trail.  I usually blow past people in the morning, but I did my best not to pass people too quickly (most people stop and take breaks along the way, which isn’t really my thing, so I ended up passing most everyone on the trail anyways).  Part way up the gulch I started to feel a little bit hungry and stopped immediately to eat a Mojo bar (can you tell I’m proud that I actually stopped to eat food when I was hungry?)  I was soon in the upper basin where I stopped to eat yet another gel.  This was a CLIF gel and it was one of the worst tasting gels I have ever had.  I think I’ll stick to GU from now on.  Another mile and 1500′ took me to the summit of Missouri.  The whole way I had to conciously tell myself to keep my pace easy.

On the summit of Missouri I checked my time – 3 hours 5 minutes for the first 4500′ of elevation, which is actually 5 minutes faster than when I did the same hike last September.  Nevertheless, my legs were feeling very fresh.  The pacing and consistent food intake seemed to be helping.  I chatted with two guys who were doing the Missouri-Belford-Oxford loop.  I figured I couldn’t be shown up by them.  After a 25 minute rest on the summit, making sure to eat and drink, I continued down the ridge toward Iowa.  It didn’t take long to reach this 13, 831′ peak.  I stopped long enough to sign the register and take some pictures and then continued toward Emerald Peak.  This was a beautiful section of ridge.  There’s no trail up there so it is classic Colorado alpine cross country travel.  As I started up Emerald Peak, I spotted two mountain goats up on the ridge, but by the time I got there they had disappeared to somewhere.  Higher up on the ridge I ran into quite a few pika the squeaked and hid under the rocks as I passed.  I spent 10-15 minutes on the top of Emerald Peak enjoying the view.

From Emerald Peak I cut across a section of the Pine Creek basin to get back to the Elkhead Pass trail.  Along the way I stopped at a nice alpine lake and refilled my water.  I was soon back on the trail and cruising up to Elkhead Pass.  Just below the pass I suddenly looked up, and there was my first Colorado sighting of a Bighorn Sheep!  I pulled out my camera to get a picture, then slowly continued toward her taking pictures along the way.  I was surprised that she didn’t run off right away.  Then I realized she was looking behind her and bleeting, so I looked over my shoulder and sure enough, there was baby Bighorn running up over the pass.  I was very excited to finally have seen some Bighorn.

At Elkhead Pass, I was still feeling pretty good, so I started up the trail toward Belford.  As I ascended I knew Oxford was also going to happen.  To get to Oxford from Elkhead pass requires climbing almost to the summit of Belford before descending a ridge and then ascending Oxford.  Then you have to repeat the ridge from Oxford to Belford to get the trail back into Missouri Gulch.  So off I went.  At the summit of Oxford I caught up to the two guys I had spoken with on Missouri.  We chatted for a while and before returning to Belford.  On Belford I met a family who had just reached the summit – 3 generations were represented and they even had a 4 year old who had climbed all the way up the mountain on his own!  Becky and Meg, it’s time to get those kids hiking.

Then it was time for the worst part of the day – the descent to the trailhead.  It’s 4500′ of steep downhill pounding to get out.  By the end my knees were feeling it a bit, but overall it actually went better than I had expected.  This time of year, while the temperature in the high country isn’t too bad, when I’m hiking out in the hot afternoon sun I tend to get a bit overheated.  And an overheated Dunbear is a cranky Dunbear.  Fortunately, there is a stream right next to the Missouri Gulch trailhead, so after getting back to the car I went down and stood in it for a while.  The cold-but-not-too-cold water felt great on my achy feet and dumping a bunch of water on my head helped drop my body temperature.  After that I ate two pieces of leftover pizza and a peanut butter and honey sandwich while drinking 1-2 liters of water to close out a good hike.  I checked the GPS which told me the day had been 16.2 miles with 8000′ of ascent for a 5 peak day.

–PICTURES–