Mt. Oxford

Adding Mount Oxford turns your day into a serious high-altitude endurance challenge. The peaks are connected by a wide, saddle ridge that drops down to 13,500 feet. Traversing from Belford's summit over to Oxford and back adds roughly 3 miles round-trip and a grueling 1,000 feet of extra vertical elevation gain—meaning you have to hike back up Belford's steep ridge a second time on your return. Hikers often save the Belford-Oxford combination hike until they have good conditioning and have completed a solid list of other 14er hikes.

While there are remote, off-trail wilderness approaches from the Pine Creek or Waverly Gulch drainages, most climbers reach Mount Oxford by hiking over Mount Belford first. There are no standard, maintained direct trails to Oxford from the valley floor. Attempting to skip Belford by bushwhacking up the unmaintained western ridges requires complex navigation through thick forest and loose, dangerous couloirs, making the standard route over Belford vastly safer and more efficient.

The most common mistake occurs when exhausted hikers are returning from Mount Oxford across the high saddle back toward Mount Belford. To avoid the steep uphill climb back over Belford's shoulder, people sometimes try to take a shortcut by dropping directly down into the steep, loose rock gullies on either side of the saddle. These unmaintained basins rapidly turn into dangerous cliff bands and impassable slide terrain; you must stay on the ridge line and re-climb Belford to return safely.

Yes, high-endurance hikers sometimes combine all three Missouri Gulch 14ers into a massive single-day trip. Attempting this loop requires you to summit Belford, traverse the high saddle to bag Oxford, return back over Belford's shoulder, descend to Elkhead Pass, and then complete a separate, steep Class 2 push up Missouri Mountain. This forms a grueling 15-mile day with over 7,400 feet of total vertical climbing, requiring elite physical conditioning, flawless pacing, and an extremely early start to beat afternoon storms.