Today, I climbed my 10th and 11th 14er. I did Mt. Belford (14,205 ft.) & Mt. Oxford (14,160 ft.) The mountains are located in the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness northwest of Buena Vista. I took the standard route from the Missouri Gulch trailhead (9,640 ft.) Mt. Belford was the first and last of the 14ers I climbed on the day. It was 3 and half mile hike to the top of Mt. Belford from the trailhead. It was quite cold on top of Mt. Belford. I didn’t stay too long due to the wind and because I needed to keep moving so that I could climb Mt. Oxford.
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| Mt. Oxford from the top of Mt Belford. |
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| Top of Missouri Mtn. on the right. Huron Peak is right center behind the ridge. |
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| Me on Mt. Belford |
From the top of Mt. Belford, I hiked down to a saddle of about 13,500 feet. I then started up Mt. Oxford. Trail distance between Mt. Belford and Mt. Oxford is about 2 miles. The climb up Mt. Oxford from the saddle was relatively easy. By the time I got to the top, the Sun was partially out, and the wind did not seem as bad.
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Me on top of Mt. Oxford |
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Looking back on Mt. Belford. |
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| Mt. Harvard. To the right of Mt. Harvard is Mt. Yale with its top in the clouds. |
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| Look,there is a pika on that rock. |
To get back to my car I had to backtrack back over Mt. Belford. The climb up Mt. Belford from the saddle is quite steep. I would say it was toughest part of the hike. I made it, and I was rewarded with some nicer temperatures on top Mt. Belford. I could also see a little bit more. There were surprisingly a lot of clouds in the area this morning. The clouds never threaten, but I kept an eye on them. I made it back to my car around 2 pm. It was a tough day, but obviously it was worth it.
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Me on Mt. Belford again |
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| The way down |
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| Mt Oxford on the left and the summit of Mt. Belford on the right. |
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| LaPlata Peak on the left. Mt. Elbert is right center. |
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| An alpine flower. |
5 comments:
you must have a long timer on your camera or else run really fast to get that pic of you on Mt. Elbert.
I want to know about the pika on the rock. Is that like the contest where you find Mike in the crowd?
It could be, but then I might have to start posting pictures of pikas on rocks where it is a lot harder to find the pika.
Way to click off those 14'ers. I thought the pika on a rock was a joke until I enlarged the pic & saw there really was one there.
I found the pika! What do I win? Oh, the flower photo, you say? Well, thank you very much.
Mom
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