Mt Massive 14,421′
3-24-08
Jon, Jordan, Joe, Frank
As much fun as the local skiing has been, I was itching to do another 14er. The plan was to meet at the trailhead at 6am, so I left at 3:30am. Unfortunately, I forgot just how much slower it is to tow a snowmobile, plus all the road signs to the trailhead were buried, so I was late (sorry guys), and we didn’t start until after 7am. At least by then the sun had come out:
We used snowmobiles to cover the 8 miles to the summer trailhead. My sled overheated (not surprising, given the flat slow road that was well frozen, plus towing someone) and blew antifreeze all over the place a hundred yards before the end, but thankfully seems to be OK. This part of the sawatch atypically looked like it might be worth a return visit:
One of the cool things for me skiing all these 14ers is that I have already climbed them all, so each trip stirs up some fond memories. For Massive, that meant memories of not putting on any sunscreen when my buddy and I climbed it a couple of days after our last day of high school. Needless to say,we both got burned to the point of blistering. Oops.
Jon wasn’t feeling the flow or doing the bull dance, so he decided to stop workin’ it, workin’ it, and headed home around treeline. We wished him well and continued upwards. Joe with (L-R) Castle, Pyramid, and the Bells behind:
Meanwhile, the winds which were forecasted to be light continued to be a little bit more than light:
Eventually we started bootpacking towards what we hoped was the summit:
Unfortunately, it wasn’t the summit. Here I am, posing it up and looking at the long summit ridge.
We made it eventually and checked out the views. Holy Cross:
Sopris, pretty noticeable for not even being 13,000′:
L-R Bells, Snowmass, Capital.
Elbert, La Plata, the rest of the Sawatch range:
Joe and I at the summit.
Jordan was coughing up a couple of lungs every other step, so we waited for as long as we could and then started down to get out of the relentless wind. Jordan persevered and made it a little while later.
We traversed the ridge until we were able to start heading down the SW slopes. The snow was wind affected, but somewhat powdery.
Joe:
jcwhiteroom:
A couple of me:
Generally speaking, our route went up the trees on the left, then up the bowl:
The sun sets on another day and another 14er:
46 down, 8 to go!!!
