MISSOURI MOUNTAIN
14,067 ft.
July 27, 1997
By Tim Briese
While the rest of my family went to Denver to attend a play, I headed to the mountains to climb another 14er. I preferred the tonic of the wilderness over the culture of civilization that day.
It was a partly cloudy morning as I drove up the Clear Creek road off of Highway 24 north of Buena Vista with my lab Sadie. I had decided to climb Missouri from the western approach past Cloyses Lake because it promised to be shorter, easier, and offered more solitude than the traditional approach from the east up Missouri Gulch. It would also allow me to visit a new valley that I might not otherwise ever see, for I planned to visit Missouri Gulch in the future on a climb of Mt. Belford.
The drawback of this route, though, was that I had to four-wheel up the rough road to Cloyses Lake, and I immediately encountered that road’s first challenge after I turned off the Clear Creek road at Rockdale and was faced with a crossing of roaring Clear Creek, which was swollen with snowmelt runoff. Before driving into the water I stopped and walked over to the edge of the creek and noted that the deepest part of it was nearly three feet deep. I had never driven through water that deep before and was concerned about damaging my truck or being pushed sideways by the water. After studying the situation a few moments I concluded that my Toyota pickup could likely handle it so I drove on through. The road beyond was quite rough, but not as bad as some four wheel routes I had been on, so I bounced the two and a half miles on up to the trailhead without incident.
There was no one else around as I left the trailhead about 8 a.m. and hiked up a nice trail along the east side of beautiful Cloyses Lake. The lake lies in a deep valley on a pocket of private land that is surrounded by the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness Area. I wondered who owned this watery gem. I felt as if I were the true owner of it as much as anyone else on this day. After all, what does it mean to hold title to a piece of the earth?
Shortly after I passed the lake I left the main trail that continued on up the valley and struck off to the left on a rough trail that took me steeply uphill out of the valley. I paused several times on this brutal ascent to catch my breath and gaze at the lake below, and at Huron Peak, which stood majestically across the valley to the west. After climbing about a thousand feet the angle relented somewhat and I reached a pleasant grassy basin below Missouri at 12,000 feet. The summit stood before me about a mile to the east at the head of the basin, guarded by a steep, rough slope of scree and rocks below its upper ramparts. The sky had become mostly cloudy by now, and misty white clouds were dancing along the highest reaches of Missouri’s summit ridge from time to time. Sadie and I startled a bull elk that was grazing nearby in this lofty meadow, and he quickly bolted off into the upper reaches of the basin.
The trail now faded away in the grass, and the climb turned into a bushwhack. After studying the terrain I decided to head up a long, gradual slope to the northeast on Missouri’s west shoulder, rather than tackle the mountain head on. I aimed for a large bank of snow high above and after an hour or so reached the crest of Missouri’s northwest ridge at about 13,900 feet, where I joined the main trail that comes up from Missouri Gulch to the east. I could see two other climbers far below coming up that way, the only other climbers I saw all day.
I was now right at the cloud ceiling, and fog rolled in and out as I hiked the half mile along the crest of the ridge toward the summit. The going was somewhat rougher than I expected, perhaps the roughest climbing I had yet faced on a Sawatch Range 14er. Shortly before I reached the top I dropped below the west side of the ridge for a short distance to avoid some rocky towers.
Just after 11:00 I stepped atop the fog-enshrouded summit. Views were non-existent, except for a fleeting glimpse down into Missouri Gulch far below. It was chilly and damp, too, so I didn’t tarry long and began my descent after only a brief rest. As I retraced my steps along the ridge I met the two climbers I had seen earlier. I soon came back down out of the clouds as I rapidly hiked back down the long slope into the grassy basin. I noted that the clouds were beginning to darken and realized that I was not getting down off of the mountain any too soon.
My knees were beginning to tire as I came down the steep slope above Cloyses Lake, but fortunately my truck was not far away. Thunder rumbled in the distance as I returned to the trailhead about 1 p.m. Rain soon pattered down, and shortly afterwards I drove through a heavy thunderstorm on my way home.
This climb of Missouri Mountain from the west past Cloyses Lake was quite enjoyable, with its solitude and direct simplicity. It is a fine alternative to the crowds of Missouri Gulch, if one can deal with the four wheel drive road and the crossing of Clear Creek.
