| Missouri Misery Trip Report |
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| Missouri Misery   | 
| Page Type: Trip Report Location: Colorado, United States, North America Date Climbed/Hiked: Sep 26, 2002 Activities: Scrambling Season: Summer | Page By: Husker Created/Edited: Jan 16, 2007 / Jan 16, 2007 Object ID: 261315 Hits: 468 Loading... Page Score: 86.88% - 3 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
Add Heading HereI climbed Missouri Mountain twice now, both times following the Missouri Gulch trail from the Missouri Gulch Trailhead, then leaving the trail that heads to Belford, onto the Pack trail, then heading up Missouri’s Northwest Ridge, then south towards the Summit.
The first time was with my daughter in late September 2002. This hike was very uneventful, under perfect weather condition with beautiful Aspen glowing from the trailhead to treeline. It was a wonderful hike, up and back down in less than 5 hrs, just in time for a Subway sandwich for lunch in Buena Vista . The only calamity being a pretty nasty blister on the back of my heel that dogged me up the ascent to the saddle at 13700 ft. As usual Jen never complained, and thoroughly enjoyed herself.
The second time up Missouri in early July 2006 was quite different. SMullen and I left the Missouri Gulch Trailhead at 5:30 am. We both absolutely hate the grueling beginning ascent as it is steep, and there is no warm-up to it, it just smacks you in the face as you start out. Our plan was to make a long day of it and get Missouri, then hike down the South Ridge trail, cut North to Elkhead pass, to the West slope of Belford, and hit the connecting saddle over to Oxford, then return to the car via Belford. That was the plan. But it was raining, and pretty hard, all day long, sans lightning/thunder.
Well I started out doing very well, SMullen was struggling with a rare asthmatic event due to the high humidity in the gulch due to the rain from the night before and that which was pelting us then. He got a second wind at treeline, and we quickly headed up the Northwest ridge. The whole say up we could see a moderately steep scree couloir that we thought we could descend quickly if lightning started up. We were at the top in just over 3 hrs. We were very happy with our progress, but unhappy with the fog that settle in on the ridge. Visibility was about 10 feet, and the wind had picked up a bit. We could see the silhouette of Belford, occasionally as a wind gust would push some of the fog away. We decided that we knew the way we came, but didn’t know the South Ridge trail at all, and were afraid if we took a wrong turn we might get into some class 5 stuff that Roach describes as a “nightmare” on the East Route. So we decided to descend back the way we came, and then climb south east once we hit Elkhead Pass. That was the new plan.
We started back Northwest along the ridge, and met up with 2 guys that came up the West Ridge Trail from Cloyses Lake where they had camped the night before. We chatted with them a bit, and they continued toward the summit. This is were things went very wrong for us. We continued toward point 13700, and it appeared to double back toward the summit. Again visibility was about 10 feet. We briefly lost our bearings. We saw our silhoutte mountain that we thought was Belford, and realized we could descend the Scree couloir that we thought we had seen on our way up. So down we went. The couloir was mostly a gully with scree and loose tallus, but had some ice and snow still in it. I started to have falling episodes as we descended. The talus that was mixed I with the scree not only moved but was also slick from the rain. I must have fallen a dozen times, occasionally getting hurt enough to pause for a moment. SMullen faired better, and was poking fun at me a bit for being clumsy.
We followed this Couloir for quite a distance, and it looked as though it was heading southeast into a stream bed. Suddenly we noticed that we were about to get to treeline, which made no sense as the upper Missouri Gulch was well above treeline. This is when I suffered my fall that put an end to our hopes of getting Belford and Oxford that day. The portion of my face just above my left eye landed sharply on a rock creating a gash that probably required stitches. And for a few minutes, it realy hurt. It was bleeding pretty heavily, and luckily I had a bandaid. SMullen applied the bandaid so tight, that it closed the gash, and pretty much stopped the bleeding. ( I never did get stitches because he did such a good job closing it up). We decided to pack it in and head back to the vehicle. We could still see what we thought was Belford through the fog. We decided that we had gotten down to tree line a little further north than where the pack trail left the trail up Belford. We decided that if we descend down and to the left we would run into the Missouri Gulch Trail. So down and to the left we went thinking we were going Northeast to the Trailhead, through some very dense forest. At one point SMullen noticed a dirt road, that looked nothing like the pack trail or Missouri Gulch trail. Finally, I was compelled to pull out the compass. Instead of going northeast, we were heading southwest. Totally on the other side of Missouri than we thought we were. Holy Crap how did we get so turned around? How embarrassing! We got down to the dirt road, and saw an SUV with a Tent pitched nearby. Luckily for us, inside were some hikers waiting out the rain storm. They revealed to us that we were on Lake Fork Road, at the Base of Mount Huron. The mountain we thought was Belford was actually Huron. We walked the road to the Rockdale trailhead, then walked east on Chaffee County Rd to the automobile. Dejected and soaked we were glad we got back safely, and sadly SMullen still needs to get Oxford.-Total estimated hike 12 miles.
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