Trip Report
Scotty and I decided to start off our 2008 Colorado trip in the
Sawatch. We wanted a peak that we could get to resonably quickly
from the Denver Airport. So, we picked Mount Massive. Mount
Massive is the second highest in Colorado. Along with the main
summit there are also 4 other Massive summits that tower above 14,000
feet. They are South Massive, The Massive Green, North Massive
and Pt 14, 169. South Massive and the Green are to the south and
north of the main summit. Both of these are relatively easy to
get, with class 1 and 2 hiking. North Massive requires some class
3 climbing if you want to get it along with the rest. And, Pt
14,169 is the furthest to the north, and not a spectacular
summit. Of course, Scotty and I wanted to grab all five of the
summits.
Our trailhead for this climb would be the North Halfmoon
Trailhead. The road to this trailhead is tough, and definitely
requires 4x4 and high clearance. We arrived at the road around 10
pm at night. Scotty manuvered the road well. There were
only a few places where we had some doubts that we could make it all
the way to the trailhead. But, we did eventually make it.
Scotty and I learned last year that early starts gave us a much better
opportunity for success. So, we started this hike at 4:30
am. The beginning of the hike was by headlamp. At 40
minutes, around 11,200 feet, we took a trail to the right. This
trail would lead us to the saddle between South and Main Massive.
As the sun came out - around 6:00 - it was obvious that this was going
to be a beautiful day. We were below the ridge at that point We
made the ridge and headed directly towards South Massive. We
wanted to start with the furthest south peak, and head north, grabbing
each peak along the way. We reached the summit of South Massive
just under 3 hours. As we got to the summit, we noticed that
there was another pile of rocks about 100 feet south of where we
were. Since we weren't sure which was higher, we ran and grabbed
the other summit also. It turns out the first one was higher.
We spent no time on South Massive, and immediately headed toward
the main Massive summit. Along the way, we got bored of the class
2 hiking, and decided to scramble up a class 3 wall, along the
way. We ultimately reached the main summit in 40 minutes.
We spent 20 minutes on the main summit, took some pictures, ate food
and drank. We got to the Massive Green in no time at all - 18
minutes. We onlly spent enough time on the Green to scout out our
upcoming class 3 challenge - North Massive.
The initial start down towards the saddle is some solid class 2.
The class 3 starts when you get to the saddle, and chose which way you
want to go around the towers in the middle of the saddle. We
chose to go left around the towers. We never determined if this
was the correct route, but we certainly got our taste of sketchy class
3. This route reminded me of the sawtooth route on Mount
Evans. It was loose, and 30 feet below us on the slope was a drop
off. We managed it well though. Our next challenge was how
to scale North Massive. The face of North Massive that we were
looking at was horribly loose, and nasty looking. It just didn't
look climbable. Ultimately, we traverses towards our right.
We were aiming at gaining the east ridge of the summit. This
ridge looked mild, if we could just get to it. It turned out that
this was the right thing to do. The route to the ridge stayed
class 2 the whole way. And, once we got to the ridge, we realized
that we could climb either the ridge, or the backside of North
Massive. Both options were easy class 2. Just before the
summit of North Massive was this super cool summit block. We both
crawled on top for some cool photo ops. We made the North Summit
in 50 minutes.
We spent a little time on North Massive, then headed to our fifth and
final summit. The route to Pt 14,169 was laborious, but
easy. We made the summit in 15 minutes. We didn't spend
much time on Pt 14,169, because it just wasn't that interesting, and
the view was nothing compared to the other four summits. As we
started heading down, we realized that we didn't have a definite route
for this summit. The routes that we were aware of included going
back up to North Massive. And, we weren't about to reclimb
anything at this point. So, we just headed down and to the
right. Ultimately we came to the top of a snow field that ran
down into the left side of the valley. We felt that this snow
field was too steep to take on, especially since we didn't bring any
snow or ice gear. So, we worked our way along the top of the snow
field, to a ridge that ran down the middle of the valley. We
followed the ridge for a while. Then, eventually we decided that
we were far enough down the snow field to down climb it. The snow
was getting pretty soft at this time also. I started down first,
kicking steps with no problem. Even when I slipped, I was able to
stop myself from sliding pretty easily. As I got towards the
bottom, I glissaded the rest of the way. I got down quickly, and
turned around to video Scott managing this slope. Scott was using
his trek poles to help himself down. As I was taping, Scotty fell
on his butt, and started sliding. As first he was out of control,
but within a few seconds he was under control. He enjoyed
glissading the rest of the way down. I really wish that we had
brought our ice axes.
As we got down into the valley we had a lot of problems finding any
definite route. But, we knew the correct direction to
follow. Ultimately we ended up back on the North Halfmoon
Trail. It was nice to finally be back on solid trail. Along
the way we met up with some ladies that had made an attemp on Mount
Oklahoma. At that point Scotty and I were kicking ourselves for
not also grabbing Oklahoma. Oklahoma is one of the top 100 high
points in Colorado. Along with the five points of Massive, this
would have been a great grab. But, not to be.
We continued down the easy trail, and ultimately got back in 7 hours 45
minutes total. This was a great start to our 2008 trip.
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