Behind the Mirror – An ode to Colorado’s Pine Creek

Colorado’s Collegiate Peaks stab up like shark teeth out of the Arkansas River valley, a jagged, high-alpine stretch of the Sawatch Range that’s visible for miles in every direction.

The town of Buena Vista sits nestled just west of them at a palatable 7,965 feet above sea level while Mount Harvard – the tallest of the Collegiates at 14,320 feet – rises nearly 6,500 feet right above it. From Mount Massive (14,421 feet) and Mount Elbert (14,433 feet, highest in Colorado and 2nd highest in the lower 48 states) just to the north, the towering stretch south of Leadville includes 14ers such as La Plata Peak (14,336 feet), Mount Belford (14,197 feet), Mount Oxford (14,153 feet), Missouri Mountain (14,067 feet), Huron Peak (14,003 feet) Harvard, Mount Columbia (14,073 feet), Mount Yale (14,196 feet), Mount Princeton (14,197 feet), Mount Antero (14,269 feet), Mount Shavano (14,229 feet), and Tabeguache Peak (14,155) all within a roughly ~70 mile stretch of craggy towers that’s unmatched anywhere in the lower 48 states.

The high concentration of these peaks is both overwhelming and enticing. Unsurprisingly, the volume of 14ers brings peakbaggers to the area in droves, and the relatively easy technical climbing required – all of the peaks mentioned fall into just the Class 2 Difficulty range by 14ers.com – means almost everyone who can summit a 14er feels confident summiting these 14ers.

The 168,000 acre Collegiate Peaks Wilderness boasts the highest average elevation of any Wilderness Area in the United States. It ranks as the 6th largest of the 44 designated Wilderness Areas within Colorado, and its eastern edge being flanked by US-285 and US-24 means that it’s one of the more accessible ones at just about 2.5 hours by car from the Denver metro area. It can, at the best weather times, get a little crowded by ‘wilderness’ standards.

I’m not here to bemoan that. I’ve climbed Harvard and Columbia up the Horn Fork Trail from North Cottonwood trailhead and tackled Oxford and Belford with the masses in Missouri Gulch. It’s an foundational experience that’s irreplicable, and I’ll go on record as imploring you to get out and do it yourself.

Do it even if there are more folks next to you than you’d like or expect. It’s completely worth it – that’s why they’re all there.

What I will say, though, is that perhaps my most enjoyable experience backpacking in Colorado has been finding ways to see these massive beacons from a slightly different angle. Stepping away from the go-to trails and trailheads that most conveniently lead you to their doorsteps and, instead, trying to sneak a peak at them by going in the side-door.

That’s what initially led me up Pine Creek, and what’s led me back there time and time again.

Horn Fork is a north/south drainage that runs you up to Mounts Harvard and Columbia. North of that, Missouri Gulch similarly runs north/south and provides the most straightforward access to each of Oxford, Belford, and Missouri Mountains. Serving almost as the perpendicular slice right between those, though, is Pine Creek, itself a drainage gulch that ferries water from Silver King Lake and Twin Lakes nearly 12 miles east until it slams into the Arkansas River just above The Numbers.

The vast majority of the people who are looking to see, summit, or attempt to summit each of Harvard and Columbia approach the two behemoths from the south. Nine out of ten folks tackling the Oxford/Belford duo (or summiting Missouri) head south out of the Missouri Gulch trailhead for their approach. Heading southwest down the Pine Creek Trail, though, gives you views behind the mirror of each, a venture behind the curtain that gifts you views akin to the seeing under their hoods.

It also walks you straight to the Continental Divide.

You’ll still find people hiking and camping along Pine Creek, though the crowd is usually much more dispersed than its busier neighbor trails. You’ll even find an abandoned homestead long the northern side of the creek about a handful of miles up the trail past the Wilderness boundary area – Littlejohn’s cabin is a remnant of a bismuth mine from early in the 1900s.

The hike begins just west of US-24 at the Pine Creek trailhead, just a handful of miles north of Buena Vista’s main street off Chaffee County Road #388. The parking area is actually on private land, and while the owners are nice enough to let folks drop cars there, they do charge an extortionate fee of one entire dollar per human in the group. The trail then sets off southwest along the creek, climbing steadily from a trailhead elevation of roughly 8,700 feet for 4.2 miles through pine forest until finally reaching the intersection of the Colorado Trail. That portion of the trail stays mostly in the trees, a 1,500 foot climb alongside the creek a mostly pleasant walk with plenty of water accessible.

It’s once you cross the Colorado Trail and emerge into the upper meadows where this trail, this drainage takes completely off. You’re smacked almost immediately with the towering southern face of Mount Oxford, and as you cross the creek and turn back west the views of Emerald Peak up the gulch become almost like a gunsight in the distance.

The meadows widen as you push your way near 11,000 feet. The creek’s flow thickens. Just before you reach Bedrock Falls, the seemingly topless cliff face to your left begins to reveal itself as the northern face of Mount Harvard, the trail turning south as if to pull back the curtain and reveal it in all its glory. There, in the Missouri Basin with Harvard, Emerald, Iowa, Missouri, Belford, Oxford, and the other peaks along the Continental Divide stand semi-circle around you as if you were the coach giving them a halftime speech.

These mountains form a fortress wall that would’ve been the envy of every feudal lord who ever sought refuge behind stacked stone. While the other sides of these granite behemoths are being stepped up and down by peakbaggers and those in failed attempts, behind them sit the meadows of Pine Creek, the small ponds it fills with each snowmelt, and the relative solitude you can’t find over just one ridge in any other direction.

One of the iconic images of the Old West is that of false-front wooden stores that lined the main streets of the pop-up towns during the great migration towards the Pacific. The big facades hiding the much smaller buildings behind them, all lined up together as a collective sales pitch that gave off the impression of something much more substantive. After climing my fair share of 14ers and studying the pictures and primary routes of many more, I really began to wonder what so many of these peaks had to offer when not viewed from the view.

The trek up Pine Creek proved to me that, if anything, these mountains are the inverse of those false-front main streets. The views you see from the go-to trailheads are the easiest ways up the mountain, with craggy stems and huge cliffs on the sides those routes do not take you through. You can climb these 14ers and centennial peaks from this gulch if you’re an expert at what you do – it’s been done before, of course – but there’s nothing about the routes here that are straightforward and precision route finding is paramount.

Though an eventual dual-summit of both Emerald and Iowa and a summit of Missouri Mountain over Elkhead Pass from the south are on my to-do list, I don’t necessarily treat this route as a bedrock for peakbagging. This area, one of my favorite in all of Colorado, is where I get the chance to camp behind the mirror, to look out at what almost everyone else is looking in.

If You Go…

Always practice Leave No Trace principles while in the backcountry.

Dispersed camping is allowed in the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness, though it’s always recommended that you prioritize using sites that have already been established so as to help preserve the grasses and vegetation in the area. There are numerous of these sites within the Pine Creek drainage.

Always pay attention to local and federal fire restrictions in the area.

Given the area’s high elevation (and the fact that the mountains that surround it keep it in shadows more often than not), Pine Creek drainage often is covered in snow well into the summer. I’d suggest contacting the rangers in the Pike-San Isabel National Forest for updates on the snowpack before planning, or attempting, any trip in the area early in the season.

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