Mt. Belford

Route: Northwest Ridge
Posted On: 6/4/2021, By: fluxxy
Info: Road is dry. Trail has some snow patches over portions, which were packed in the morning, but a slushy postholey mess by early afternoon. Never put my spikes in though. 

Route: Northwest Ridge
Posted On: 6/1/2021, By: codyli34
Info: Road to the trailhead is dry. Traction and flotation are not needed. Felt like summer conditions, except for a bit of mud on the descent.

Also if anyone left their jacket in a sack at the cabin, we brought it to the trailhead and set it by the restrooms for you. 

Route: Northwest Ridge
Posted On: 5/29/2021, By: Alpinefroggy
Info: Trail in summer mode all the way to Oxford with the exception of some packed down sections between bridge and cabin and some drifts on the way up. Easily avoidable. Snowshoes useless now. Gully in shape. 

Route: Northwest Gully
Posted On: 5/26/2021, By: davisrice4
Info: Skied really well at about 12:30 on 5/25. Great continuous snow for over 2,000 feet, and the pitch is perfect for hauling ass down corn! Thinning out a bit, but should still have a few weeks left. 

Route: Southern slopes
Posted On: 5/17/2021, By: bangerth
Info: Took the southern slopes up coming from the base of Missouri's North Couloirs. 2/3 snow and 1/3 tundra, relatively easy walking and, in my view, far preferable to the usual NW ridge.

Then took the NW couloir down via glissading for its entire 2000' run -- glorious! It was getting a bit late in the day for that, as the bottom was starting to get pretty slushy, but still so so much better than having to walk down that ridge :-)

From the base of the ridge (=base of the couloir), intermittent snow and muddy trail all the way to the creek crossing. At 2pm, this led to much cursing due to frequent sinking into the snow to the knees or hips. Snowshoes would have helped, but would have to be frequently put on/taken off. 

Route: Northwest Gully
Posted On: 5/13/2021, By: gregpeak
Info: The trail up to the creek crossing is about 50% snow covered. It is well packed down and melting fast. There is nearly continuous snow from the creek crossing to the summit. Much of it can be avoided. I was able to ski from just below the summit back to the creek crossing and only took my skis off once. The NW gully is in great condition. 

Route: Northwest Gully
Posted On: 5/2/2021, By: Geckser
Info: The trail is still pretty snowy, there is essentially some snow cover from the trailhead to the summit. Until you reach the basin this snow cover is spotty, slick and makes travel with or without flotation a bit tricky. The northwest gully is still very much in and made for a great ski. The traverse to Oxford is melting fast and is ~90% dry. The only snowy sections of the whole traverse are on the descent to the saddle from Belford, very doable and we were very happy that we carried trailrunners for the traverse. It felt like an absolute dream to be on a nice high elevation trail again.

We started the descent at around 12:30, which led to great snow off the Northwest gulley but very nasty crust lower down. The worst section by far was the first clearing which had sections where you sunk 15 inches in (with skis) and were then stopped by a hard upper crust. Incredibly frustrating. We then walked our skis down most of the way from there, while some sections were skiable the coverage is so variable and I respect my skis to much to try and ski it.

We skied Missouri last week and there was less melt off than anticipated, the conditions are still pretty good up there, may not be the case for long!

14er number 56 and 57, excited to be getting so close! 

Route: Northwest Gully
Posted On: 5/3/2021, By: Another Steve
Info: We camped around 11,800', then climbed Belford up the Northwest Gully with a traverse to Oxford. We camped one more night, and hiked out 5/2. Snowshoes and crampons.

Geckser's report covered most of the important bits, but here's a bit more info. The lower trail (below the stream crossing) is melting out fast. It's so beat up now that flotation is probably not useful, and significant patches of trail are bare anyway. However, there's still near-continuous snow from the stream crossing at the big avalanche runout until just below the Belford summit.

With the recent warming temps, snow conditions are deteriorating. Below the cabin (around 11,500') the snowpack has lost all structure with the warming temps. On our way down, crossing the avalanche area we were postholing to our waists in snowshoes. Ick. However, earlier in the day when it was still cold the snowshoing was excellent.

Lots of wet slide activity in the area. The Belford gully seemed safe enough earlier in the day, but by the time we started coming down (around 12) the snow was already getting pretty wet and losing structure. Fortunately, there's not too much snow in the lower gully that can fall down on top of you. We called off a Missouri attempt on Sunday because we could see recent slides on the face. Be safe out there!

EDIT: 4th photo caption didn't stick. It shows snowpack around 11,600' or so. 

Route: Northwest Ridge
Posted On: 4/30/2021, By: JasonCrane
Info: I snowshoed from Missouri Gulch TH up to the Mt. Belford headwall, then descended due to extreme winds. Well established trench below tree-line that has morphed into a half-pipe shape from the amount of skiing on the trail. The snow field across the small creek crossing requires floatation, particularly in the PM. Past the old cabin relic, more post-holing. The entire trail is visible from Mt. Belford headwall switch-backing up the ridge. Missouri Gulch still has significant snow coverage & Missouri Mountain appears loaded. 

Route: Northwest Gully
Posted On: 4/19/2021, By: RWSchaffer
Info: Bootpack to stream crossing, traction advisable. Snowshoes from there, though coverage is thin in places.

Last week's storm cycle brought 3-6 inches of fresh snow, deposited uniformly. There are very few places where old snow surfaces peek through. Where the April 12 condition reports show snow, the fresh snow makes conditions even better. Where they don't show snow, it may look to the casual observer as though there is now snowfield (Photo 1), but coverage is so thin that it's not suitable for snowshoes or, I would assume, skis. Photo 2 shows how close you can get to the summit on good snowfield, while Photo 3 looks back on the snowfield from the summit.

Continuing to Oxford, I stashed my snowshoes because the terrain isn't suitable and continued on spikes. With significant fresh snow on the ridge, this meant a few stretches of plunge stepping and knee deep postholing on the descent to the saddle (Photo 4). Even the Oxford side of the traverse, which is typically wind scoured in snow season, has a few inches of snow (Photo 5). Snow on the Belford side of the traverse collapsed in two places but stayed put. In a few other spots, poorly bonded fresh snow kicked away to reveal slick old surfaces underneath. 

Route: Northwest Gully
Posted On: 4/12/2021, By: Posthole Pete
Info: Snow pretty much continuous from the bridge until 13,800. Lower trail/switch backs is very packed and slick in the morning so if you plan to skin up (like I did) you might want ski cramps (unlike I did) for less worry and more uphill speed. Had turned to corn by the time I got back down but the packed center of the trail still felt firm for no need of floatation. Gully is skinable but someone put in a bootpack on what must have been a warm day because all the steps were firm and quite convenient. I did not use crampons at all. A couple rocky spots near the top but I was able to get 3,5k of continuous riding. 

Route: Northwest Ridge
Posted On: 4/9/2021, By: Gueza
Info: Yep! 

Route: Northwest Ridge
Posted On: 1/8/2021, By: WildWanderer
Info: Nice trench to the avalanche area; we wore spikes but could have gotten away without them. Then we put on our snowshoes and made a trench to the base of Belford. From there only spikes were needed to summit. Oxford looked doable with just spikes, but we had other plans so it was just Belford for us today. Pictures of Missouri added for those interested. 

Route: Northwest Ridge
Posted On: 12/26/2020, By: CaptainSuburbia
Info: We were able to get a 4Runner and Ram 1500 to the trailhead. It was much more difficult getting out in softer snow. There's a nice trench from trailhead to ridge. Snowshoes were necessary going up. The ridge was mostly windblown with the trail covered in a thin layer of snow. We then went to Oxford. Some snow going down to saddle but nothing major. Windblown from there to Oxford summit. Descended a mostly windblown Pecks Peak back to Missouri Gulch trail. 

Route: Northwest Ridge
Posted On: 11/27/2020, By: TheColdTexan
Info: The route is snowcovered the entire way but snowshoes are not needed. Avoidable in some spots and up to knee deep in others. Was windy and very cold, certainly winter up there now. Wore spikes the whole time and brought out my extendo glacier axe as a walking aid on the ridge proper. Northwest gully looked just filled in enough for the taking for an early season ski descent before the next storm loads the avy prone slopes above.