6/14/2023 Route: North Face Couloirs Posted On: 6/15/2023, By: Ryan987 Info: Started at 3:30 AM and did not encounter patchy snow until the abandoned cabin. Nearly continuous snow till the peak. Went up the main direct couloir and glissaded down the same route. Started climbing the coulior by 6:30 or so and snow got slushy fast, I would start earlier (or hike quicker...). Got back to the parking area by noon. Coulior is in for skiing. A great day and only saw one other person on the trail! |
|
6/11/2023 Route: Northwest Ridge Posted On: 6/12/2023, By: samfarmer789 Info: Summer conditions until going up to and on the ridge, would still recommend spikes and ice ax for the ridge- should be all melted out in a week or two though. Saw some people going up the couloir and skiing down. No snow on the trail until after the little creek crossing around 1 mi in, then some patches that were fine and crunchy on the way up and slick/post-holy on the way down. Pretty warm the whole day like 40's even on the summit. Started 4:30am, summit of MO at 9am, we did the elkhead pass to get to belford/oxford, used spikes and ax the whole way up that, got to the saddle on backside of Belford and saw weather coming in so just did Belford and back down. Belford trail is 95% dry/snow-free. |
|
6/11/2023 Route: North Face Couloirs Posted On: 6/12/2023, By: supranihilest Info: Still very in for climbing and/or skiing. |
|
6/10/2023 Route: Northwest Ridge Posted On: 6/11/2023, By: MountainBud Info: Missouri + Belford via missouri gulch and elk head pass. Quick hike up to Missouri gulch/Missouri mtn trail split. Trail is dry to Missouri saddle. Sporadic snow from saddle to peak with a few snow crossings on weak rock. Not too difficult, but a few sketchy moves. Back down and up elk head pass fairly easy through some snow fields (no post holing around 11am-12pm). Summited Belford and back down the standard route. 7-8 hour day. Snow definitely added 1-2 hours. |
|
6/10/2023 Route: North Face Couloirs Posted On: 6/11/2023, By: Agstrohmeier Info: Snow starts about 2k feet vertical on the trail. Then continuous to the summit. Surprisingly good snow quality, we skied at 10am, smooth quality corn. Good day |
|
6/4/2023 Route: North Face Couloirs Posted On: 6/5/2023, By: NickMoline Info: 4am start, one other car in the lot. Trail dry up until near-tree line where snow gets patchy. brought snowshoes but never used them as it was cold enough that the pack was hard. This said, there were a few post-holes that went at least to my waist and spots that could have been deeper if I broke through. Put on crampons at the base of the colouir and cruised up to the summit. Glissaded down to the basin and took off. Car-to-car in 6 hours. Overall was an amazing morning in a colouir. Get it while its there! The standard route up the ridge is still heavily snowed in. It was hard to tell because of the cloud cover but the Belford route looked fairly dry. |
|
5/18/2023 Route: Northwest Ridge Posted On: 5/20/2023, By: ccherry Info: Successfully summited via standard route and glissaded N face couloir. Started 2:45am. Trail is mostly dry until the creek crossing, after which point snowshoes are necessary. Snow was not terrible to snowshoe from 11000 to 13000 on the ascent before sunrise, but there was some postholing, even in snowshoes. Variable punch crust covered most of the trail from there to the ridge. At one point I stepped onto a ~4 inch crust and postholed up to my belly button in facets around 13400. Postholed ~6 inches along the ridge to the summit, most of the trail there is still covered. Summited around 9:00, and hung out for an hour. Pellet-shaped snow started to come down on me even with mostly clear skies above, and a cloud swallowed Oxford, killing my desire to continue. Glissaded down corn snow at 10:00, and the snow intensified. Changed my socks and donned snowshoes, and the snow went away for a while. Snow in the top of the basin was a bit worse on the descent, which was made even more annoying by the on and off dry sections of the trail. I became pretty fast at taking my shoes on and off. Snowshoeing was fine until around 11200, where I drowned in the corn. I had to dig a snowshoe out from under 3 feet of corn and then buttslide-posthole down the slope. When I finally reached the creek crossing again, I through everything in my pack and ran out. Finished 12:40 pm. |
|
5/2/2023 Route: North Face Couloirs Posted On: 5/3/2023, By: DeclanKnies Info: Successful summit! Parked at the Crescent mining camp trailhead, which would have been accessible without 4wd about 95% of the way. Terrible braking bumps and potholes plague the road as soon as the maintenance ends (around 4 miles from Missouri gulch). Small snowdrifts exist which is why I say you need 4wd to get all the way to the trailhead but they're melting fast and I imagine will be gone by the weekend. Snow is rotten about 1500 feet below treeline and coverage was spotty at best. Above treeline was incredible and was stable wind-buffed pow. Get it while its good! The snow bridge is gone for the clohesy lakes trail so bring extra socks or be prepared to bushwhack and posthole for a few hundred feet to find a way around. |
|
4/30/2023 Route: North Face Couloirs Posted On: 4/30/2023, By: Maricopa Mountaineer Info: The road to Missouri Gulch TH is dry as of April 30th. Dont be like me, do yourself a favor and start ascending the couloirs before sunrise. In other news, there is now an established trench all the way to the summit. The first quarter mile from the TH has dry patches but after that the snow remains constant, it was also pretty icy early morning so I ended up using traction for the entirety of the climb. I ascended the couloir (the most direct one) that was to the left of C couloir because it was the only one that still had some shade at 9am. If you go after sunrise expect to post hole up to your knees for the entirety of the ascent. Avy conditions looked stable except some roller balls formed on the steeper sun exposed sections. I also saw a group ascending and breaking trail on the standard route. |
|
4/30/2023 Route: North Face Couloirs Posted On: 4/30/2023, By: isaacbauman Info: We started the hike at 6:30am and intended to follow the standard route: the Northwest Ridge. Including me it was a group of three and we wanted to ski/splitboard descend one of the north facing couloirs. Skinning up the beginning switchbacks in the morning was fairly challenging in the steeper sections due to the ice and we had a couple close calls. We eventually reached 12,600ft and made a choice to ascend a random couloir, looker's right of M3 route. The snow was so soft at this time we were able to skin all the way to about 13.7K before it became too steep and the snow was not deep enough. We switched to boot packing from here until the summit. On the ridge to the summit the snow was nearly waist deep in places and very slow moving. The "Crux" of the route was riddled with snow and the typical path to the right of the rocks could not be taken. We had to climb straight up the rocks. The splitboard descent in the couloir we ascended earlier was super soft with no rocks to worry about. Make sure you have crampons for any of these couloirs! |
|
4/23/2023 Route: North Face Couloirs Posted On: 4/23/2023, By: AlessiaAscent Info: Road is dry to the summer trailhead, but 95% continuous snow starts about 3 min above the trailhead. We started at 3am so that the snow wouldnt be too warm/slushy by the time we were descending. Had a nice skin in the dark, made it to about 12,000 ft before the sun came up. After some brief getting lost, we took skis off and booted from 12.3 to the base of the bowl/Couloirs at 12.8. We chose the Main Couloir because it didnt look too wind loaded and looked like nice continuous snow. Snowpack was a little more winter-y than we expected, maybe 2-3 inches of slightly wind affected powder on top of typical spring ice sheet. No evidence of coherent slab, but some concerning chunks of snow. Couloir itself was a mix of good booting and terrible postholing. We took the right branch of the Couloir about halfway up the climb, because it was a lower angle and the snow was concerningly loose. Summit was beautiful, just off to left from end of Couloir. My partner Logan5280 ski cut to about halfway down the Couloir, and it seemed stable. Nothing slid after two good cuts. After he stopped, he did trigger a big dry sluff that continued to the bottom of the Couloir, maybe about 1,000 ft. Seemed pretty inconsequential even though it was big, mostly a relic of power on top of ice. On the way out, we took an East-facing couloir on skiers right with continuous snow - it was pretty warm with the potential for wet-loose slides by the time we got there. Otherwise, skiing was amazing, we were summit-car in 2 hours, including lots of time taken for avy observations in steep areas. Also, I lost a crampon around 13.6 in the couloir, so if anyone finds it, send me a message! |
|
3/18/2023 Route: Northwest Ridge - Winter Variant Posted On: 3/19/2023, By: RWSchaffer Info: Walk from the plow turn to the trailhead on Chaffee County Road 390. From trailhead to stream crossing, I re-established trench which had received several inches of snow since it was last used. From stream crossing, past the cabin, to just before the Belford/Missouri trail junction, I crossed untracked snow, mostly following the route of the summer trail. I then dropped to the creek and followed the drainage line on low-angle virtually willow-free snow that well supported my snowshoes and made for quick travel (pictures 1-3). Having collapsed snow a few times below timberline, I opted not climb a couloir on the north face, and instead climbed the lower-angled slope between the north face and the basin the holds the standard summer route (center of picture 4). 8-12 inches of fresh snow that easily compressed into steps made for good climbing, though the top 200 feet and the climb from the base of the the mountain to the bottom of the slope were less pleasant with thinner snow of variable quality. I triggered a few more snow collapses, but no avalanches, as I worked my way along the snow-covered ridge to the summit (pictures 5 and 6), including at the top of the "C" couloir. The last stretch of ridge before the summit holds steep snow, covering the steep dirt that is difficult to traverse in summer. I bypassed the first part by staying on the ridge crest (picture 7, looking back). I handled the remainder by down-climbing a bit and then doing an ascending traverse along the summer route (picture 8, taken on descent). Snowshoes were useful from trailhead to the base of the mountain, where I swapped them for ice axe and strap-on snow crampons. |
|
1/13/2023 Route: Belfor/Oxford/Missouri Posted On: 1/14/2023, By: Chrisfish25 Info: Old trench up to base of Belford. Missouri standard & that entire face is a no go under current conditions. We dropped down a steep acres field near Elkhead Pass & circled around the backside of missouri. Got lured into NW ridge as a exit & paid the price trenching out of Browns Creek. 15 hour day. Pic of our route |
|
11/26/2022 Route: Northwest Ridge Posted On: 11/27/2022, By: infinitealpine Info: No major changes from the last update. Road to TH is dry, nice compact trail to the first junction. After the split to Missouri is where I'd recommend putting on crampons. There are multiple steep slope crossings where microspikes didn't feel sufficient. I opted to mostly follow the ridge proper as well but did drop down at the crux as that was just faster for me rather than going up and over (which I did on the ascent). I think there were 2 other crossings where I also chose to follow the standard route below the ridge and just kicked in solid steps. Careful descending the summit because going down the wrong way is no fun when you have to resummit. Long day mostly due to crossing steep snow slopes that either required kicking steps, slow careful movements, or just sinking to knees and hips in other random areas. |
|
11/22/2022 Route: Northwest Ridge Posted On: 11/22/2022, By: Will_E Info: Summitted Missouri today, road is dry to Missouri Gulch TH. There's a really good trench to the Elkhead Pass/Missouri split, from there I followed tracks that initially traced the Missouri standard route, but then branched south for a short distance before ending, around 13,000'. I continued up that ridge (see gps track attached), there were a few short sections of stiff, steep snow I would have liked to have had crampons for, but got up with micro spikes and ice axe okay. Once gaining the ridge I stayed mostly ridge proper to summit. On descent I went all the way to the end of the ridge and did a slight variation of the standard route to avoid the aforementioned section since I didn't have crampons. Nice day, hardly any wind, 28° at summit. |
