Mt. Massive, August 2004

At 14,421 feet, Mount Massive is the second tallest peak in Colorado. It stands seemingly alone in the western sky of Leadville Colorado, but it's only a few miles north of Colorado's tallest peak, Mt. Elbert (which is, I think, 14 feet taller). Massive gets its name not from its elevation, but from the bulk of mountain which is above fourteen thousand feet. Massive's tallest peak is just one of several peaks along a nearly two mile long ridge all well above 14K'. That's a big chunk of mountain over 14K'. In fact Mount Massive has the most rock above 14K' of any mountain in the continental US. Maybe it's all how you define the mountain, but Massive is certainly an impressive chunk of rock.

But for all its size it's not that difficult a climb. There is an easy trail 90% of the way, and even the final 10% is pretty easy. All told I probably only had to use my hands about ten times. Technically Massive is much easier than Longs peak which is almost two hundred feet shorter. Unlike Longs there wasn't a single spot where I felt a mistake could lead to my death. While the western slope was certainly steeper than the eastern route we took it's not that much steeper, and in fact there is a trail coming up from the west side of the mountain too. So if you want to do a fourteener, but don't want the (small but still present) risks of Longs then Massive is the mountain for you (unless you don't want the effort either in which case you hop in your car and drive to the top of Mt. Evans or Pikes Peak.

Tom put together the route which was similar to our Longs strategy. We hiked in to a layover camp at the base of the peak, and on the layover day we climbed the peak. Also like Longs the more traditional approach is to start from the parking lot early in the morning and do the climb light (day packs rather than full packs) in one day. Over the course of our three day trip we met probably about 20 people doing just this. This was a much nicer state than on our Longs trip where, over the course of three days, we probably saw 150 people! Longs is popular. Massive is not nearly so.

We car camped in a nice little National Forest campground along Halfmoon Creek. Then on our hike-in day we aimed for the highest place where we thought there would be both flat ground and water. While we were planning the trip we thought that maybe where the trail intersected Willow Creek would be a good spot. And indeed it was. There were several good spots already used for camping complete with rock fire rings, and one of them was already taken. (Incidentally this is National Forest so you can pretty much camp wherever you want.) When I arrived at this spot I was dead tired, but Tom wanted to see if we could get higher to make the final climb to Massive easier. So we pushed on and made it to about here. There was ample flat ground, and, we discovered after already setting up camp, a couple of spots already set up with rock fire rings (but since we were stoves-only that didn't really matter). Tom of course beat me to camp by nearly a half hour, and I was very glad to see that he had already gone for water by the time I got up to where his pack was. I think I was tired enough that the thought of dying of thirst sounded much more appealing than walking the thousand or so feet to the stream to the south of us.

Our camp spot was beautiful. That night we looked down on the glistening lights of Leadville, and up at the hulk of a mountain we planned on hiking the next day. That day and night, however, I was so tired that I was very seriously thinking of staying in camp while Tom climbed the peak. But the next morning I figured I'd go at least a little ways. The trail was very easy to follow. There were a few rock cairns which might have been useful if the trail had been under snow, but in late August the trail couldn't be missed (in fact you can see it from the peak). I just kept plodding along through typical Pica and Marmot country. After I got around the nose of the ridge looking over our camp site I was able to see the whole of the valley and the Eastern flank of Massive all the way up to Massive's peak ridge. Way ahead of me, but not so far along that it was depressing I saw Tom's tiny figure plodding up the same trail. I also was able to see, even further away, tiny tiny little specks moving on the very top of Massive. Indeed this was a couple, who we later met on their way down, who were taking the final steps to the summit. So I kept on going kind of using Tom and these tiny specks as rabbits for me until I finally made it to the saddle where Tom was waiting hunkered down from the fairly intense wind ripping across the ridge. Once I'd made it this far I figured I might as well do the last leg.

From the saddle to the peak was certainly steeper than the first 90% of the trail, but surprisingly despite the very rocky look from a distance there is a small gravel trail nearly every step of the way including along the very spine of the ridge. There were a few places where you scramble up maybe a five foot step or so, but nothing seriously challenging at all. The first summit you reach is probably only about a foot lower than the "true" summit (at 14,421'). In fact when I reached this first summit Tom was already on the highest summit, but he was sitting down, and as I looked at him over the roughly thousand foot distance between the two summits he looked to be exactly at my level. I was nearly content to simply climb this "lesser" peak which probably stood at 14,420 feet, but then Tom stood up. I know that this was all in my imagination, but I swear when he stood up the real peak suddenly looked a full five feet higher than my own peak, so I felt compelled to do the final steps to get to the real peak. Once on the real peak it was clear you were higher than every other mountain in the area with the exception of Elbert (the one with snow on its flanks) which was about five miles to the South of us.

The trip back down was uneventful. It was pleasant since I knew we didn't have any serious challenges facing us. Camp was right where we left it. The next day we headed back to the car. We had an excellent little supper in a Mexican restaurant in Leadville, and the headed back to Denver. I started back to Ohio that night.


Two sites with info on Mt. Massive:


And a pretty good site on all the fourteeners of Colorado: