From the Mount Massive Trail
| I had been looking
forward to Mount Massive for a long time. Mount Massive, as you can
probably predict from the name, is a giant mountain. It features a
mile of terrain that is continually above 14,000 feet. Don't attempt
a traverse of this mountain if you're not acclimatized!
I wanted to do it by the standard route since it was long and very gentle. It was a beautiful day for a hike. I had taken the day off from work and began hiking fairly late, if I recall - around 9:30 am. The first part of the hike uses the Colorado Trail. The turnoff to Mount Massive is about 3 miles later, after two bridges over creeks, and is marked with a large sign - hard to miss! |
Mount Massive from the outskirts of Leadville |
|
Ptarmigan |
After a quarter mile of
steep hiking and another half mile, I broke out of treeline and had a great view of the
rest of the route. I didn't bring my gaiters
along and it turned out that I needed them. The new snow (which would melt after a couple
of days) was fairly deep and I constantly had to dig the snow out of my boots.
I eventually ran into a flock of several ptarmigans. At one point, I was within 10 feet of
five or six of them (left). |
| The hike up to the ridge
was very long and, after finally arriving, I was surprised to see how thin the ridge was.
It was no knife edge, but it certainly wasn't the standard wide ridge commonly seen on
Sawatch fourteeners like Princeton and Antero. About 15 minutes past a false summit, I finally
arrived at the true summit. I called home and talked for a while but my battery was dying
so I kept getting cut off. Another climber arrived from the other side.
He had come up the
steep slopes near Halfmoon lake. He told me that he had started hiking at 8:00 am. So that
goes to show you that long gentle slopes are sometimes much faster than short steep slopes.
He
seemed really tired so I told him that if he wanted to hike down the other side, that I'd
be glad to give him a ride to his car at the Halfmoon Lake trailhead. I suggested that if
he were ready that he go on ahead because I hiked out so fast. On the way down, I did end
up passing him, but that gave me time to do some stretches and collect a few
rocks back at the trailhead. |
On the summit |
Panoramic shot from the top of Mount Massive
I gave him a ride back to his station wagon. I couldn't believe he even attempted to get a car like that, let alone try, up that road. The road was quite easy for a 4x4 but I wouldn't think a regular 2-wheel drive car could ever make it up there.
|
|
The last time I'd been up this road was when I had climbed
Mount Oklahoma. Driving along brought back memories of how pretty it
is deep in the Mount Massive wilderness. Check out this sizeable
waterfall which you can see from the road (left).
I was glad to give the fella a ride to his car. I can't remember his name now, but I was happy to be able to do someone a favor - especially when they're so tired. I hope that someone would give me a ride if I ever really needed it. |
