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It was so great to get back to hiking fourteeners. This past January I fell skiing at Copper and herniated a disc in my back. In March I had surgery for the second time on the disc. I was very discouraged that I thought I would never be able to get back up hiking. After a few months of rehab and a few warm up hikes I was back at it. My brother and I started up the trail at 5am. Wanted to get in both peaks so I knew we should start early. We got to the junction to Missouri just after 6am. Here is a shot of Missouri.
We then proceeded up the swich backs on Belford.
Almost to the top we could the summit of Belford with a small crowd.
We got to the summit just after 8:30 and were greeted with great views of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton and not a cloud in the sky.
We didn‘t stay long on the Belford summit because I knew we wanted to get to Oxford. The traverse from Belford to Oxford is pretty straight forward. There are a few steep spots on the Belford ridge but nothing to complicated.
It took just about an hour to reach the summit of Oxford from Belford. I was very exhilarated that I we had reached both summits. Here is a shot looking back up to Belford from Oxford.
After 15 minutes on Oxford we began the hike back up Belford. This was by far the hardest part of the hike. We managed to get back in just over an hour to summit of Belford at around 11. Finally we descended back to the Missouri Gulch trailhead and got back to the car at around 2. Overall this was a great hike. It definitely tested our endurance as the hike is over 11 miles with a lot of elevation gain. I was very relieved that my back held up great. I am going to continue to keep my back in shape hopefully to get in a few more 14ers by the end of the season.
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Glad to hear you are back in the game. Congrats on overcoming your back problems. Sourdough
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