Labor Day weekend = A free Monday for Dierker. Unemployment = A free Monday for Dani. We figured a long weekend called for ticking some boxes off of the 14er list, so we headed to Leadville and the Sawatch for a few days after skiing St. Mary's on Saturday.

We found a nice spot to camp up CR 390, which was close to two trailheads that provide access to the higher peaks. It was looking like weather was iffy for Sunday and good for Monday, so we settled on jiking Huron on Sunday.

HURON

We left the car around 6 from the S. Winfield trailhead, and mostly ran up the 4WD road toward the real start to the climb on the Huron Peak trail (making good time, averaging 10 min/mile). Once above treeline, the temperature dropped and we both regretted only having shorts and a few thin running jackets. Luckily, both of us had heavy duty gloves. The wind was MOVING and some rain clouds were beginning to group and close in. Dani was having a rough day already, and the conditions didn't help. Neither one of us could feel our feet, hands, legs, faces...we summited Huron (14,003 ft) at about 2 hrs, 30 mins from the car, snapped some quick photos, and got the hell out of there. We got back to the car at 10:20. Not too bad. It was a beautiful morning, but also much more brutal than we had anticipated-- something more clothes probably would have helped.

We drove to Leadville to get some huge mugs of coffee from City on a Hill and make plans for Sunday. We decided on doing a loop on Missouri, Oxford, and Belford-- a long day, but doable. We decided we'd hike it, since clearly we needed to carry more layers, food, and water than we had for Huron. Back at camp, we munched on breadsticks for dinner and played cards in the tent while the weather spat outside.

MISSOURI, OXFORD, BELFORD

Round trip distance: 15 mi, Total vertical elevation gained: 7,414 ft

We left the car at 4:15 and were the first people on top of Missouri by 8:00 AM. We headed back down to Missouri Gulch and up Elkhead Pass and the shoulder of Belford toward Oxford, and were down and up Oxford by 11:05. We summited Belford and had lunch by noon, and were back at the car by 2:30. Not bad! Most notable were the many pikas (see shoddy photo of one below), beautiful yellowing alpine tundra, and the gale-force winds that persisted from treeline (5 AM) and for the rest of the day (not pictured). It was a long day, but we had some recovery burgers in Leadville and were back home in Boulder by 7:30.

Missouri Mountain: 14,067 ft | Mt Oxford: 14,153 ft | Mt Belford: 14,197 ft

[Click on photo to enlarge, hover cursor for captions.]