Alpenglow.
I took the West Route, up through the grandiose valley, full of wild-flowers and wildlife, such as squirrels, marmots and chipmunks. These I would see off and on the rest of my hike. The trail crossed a few open meadows and eventually became a little steeper, allowing views of the Halfmoon Creek below and the west ridge of Massive to the north and east.
Solitude.
I moved up through this basin and onto an upper shelf, entirely consisting of snow and rock. The immediate scenery at this point wasn’t as impressive, but the ridge around me was a spectacle to behold. North Massive stood assertively in front of me, and the entire Massive ridge looped around me, still blocking the sun, which had already risen hours earlier in Denver.
This buttress marks the beginning of the ridge leading to “North Massive.”
Final ridge to “North Massive.”
9:14- I came to the summit of North Massive, at 14,340 feet above sea level. Though this is not considered an officially-ranked peak, it was the highest I have ever been outside of an airplane,
but in another hour it would slip to second place. The view, of course, was breath-taking, and I had my best look yet at the rest of the Sawatch Range, which I am sure I will be visiting again in the near-future.
Sawatch Scenery.
10:20- Mount Massive, at 14,421 feet in elevation, is the second-highest peak in Colorado, and the third highest in the Continental United States. The view from here was, well, pretty much the same as it had been from North Massive: Spectacular.
The hiker I had seen trailing me earlier finally caught up with me at this point. I found out he is actually from Hungary but now lives in Colorado. He had a thick accent but we had some good conversation. This was also his first time on Mount Massive.
Mount Massive.
Hikers with a view.
Coming to the next saddle, I could see the more popular and standard route for Mount Massive (the aptly named “Mount Massive Trail”) winding down through the valley to the east. My route was straight up the ridge-line to my third and final (though once again unofficially ranked) summit of the day, South Massive.
11:22- I snapped some good pictures of Mount Massive from the summit of South Massive, at 14,132 feet. The hike to this peak had been an easy little walk, especially after all I had already hiked so far today. I stayed less than ten minutes. There were some snow flurries in the air, and I didn’t want to taunt the skies in case they held any lightning.
As it turns out, they did not. The hike down the steep “Southwest Route” was a beautiful sunny one, though it seemed to go on forever. I reached this by walking back down to the South Massive/Massive summit and heading straight downhill on the well defined trail on the southwest ridge. There was a peculiar smell here, almost like perfume, which I attributed to the abundant wild-flowers gracing this steep meadow. The views of Colorado’s highest 14er, Mount Elbert, were awesome the whole way down this ridge.
It wasn’t long before I caught up with a group of 12 hikers, who were taking their time getting down the mountain. I talked with one of the ladies, who I found was a leader in the group of teens. They had come from all over to do a 20-some day long hike through the wilds of Colorado. That explains all the different locations I saw listed in the register at the top of Massive. Interesting.
That group let me go ahead of them, which was a good thing, because I could hardly keep myself from running down the dirt trail. It was very steep. Still, I preferred it to the scree slope trail of Mount Bross.
I continued down this trail, across steep grassy meadows and rocky slopes, until I finally neared the final meadow at the bottom.
Mount Elbert.
1:45- The jeep was right where I had left it, and I was glad to complete this scenic and memorable
hike.