| Peak: | Missouri Mountain - 14,067 feet | |
| Posted By: | RobertKay | |
| Post Date: | 11/01/2009 | |
| Date Climbed: | 10/27/2009 | |
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| Missouri Mountain from Missouri Gulch |
We left the parking lot at the bottom of Missouri Gulch at about 7 pm Monday night, intending to climb Missouri, Oxford and Belford on Tuesday. We camped just below the Missouri/Belford intersection.
Tuesday morning was a little threatening so we set off for the summit of Missouri not sure if we would be able to do all three. As it turned out, we didn‘t even summit Missouri! The weather grew worse and worse as we went along the ridge top - very strong winds and very cold. We finally decided that the weather was getting too serious and headed down a snow-filled couloir. It was quite narrow, had an "ess" bend and the snow was perhaps three feet deep. We glissaded down and after the second bend it opened out onto the wide open lower slopes below Missouri‘s ridge. At this point I triggered an avalanche and rode it down for perhaps 300 feet. Luckily I was able to stay on the surface and never came close to getting buried, but it was scary nevertheless. The ironic thing was we discussed avalanche possibilities and decided that we were too early in the season to have enough snow depth or layers to cause us any trouble. We were trying to be safe, which is why we gave up our summit attempt even though we were at about 13,800. It just goes to show that these things can occur at any time, even in October! Thumbnails for uploaded photos:  | |||
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