Steps in the Right Direction: Mt. Massive, Leadville CO

Signing in for an early start!

Facts
10 hours
Starting elevation 10,100 feet highest elevation 14,421 feet
Gained 4,410 feet
14 miles round trip
Total miles: 80.4

The alarm went off at 3:30 am. I think I was already awake as I was sure an airplane was going to go right through the house! I guess we are kind of close to the airport. I only heard one plane, so perhaps that pilot made a slight error in altitude?

We got ready for our attempt to go up Mt. Massive in a quick 30 minutes. Then we decided that we simply must have a cup of coffee before going, so we quickly made a small pot and medicated our caffeine fix. The thought of starting with a caffeine headache and a high altitude headache was too much

Yesterday we practiced the drive to the trailhead. When arriving in Leadville yesterday we were not sure where the Mt. Massive trailhead was or how long it would take to get there from where we are staying. Driving around lost at 4 in the morning is never a good idea, so we read several printouts that we had in our trip folder and ambled around until we found the correct set of roads. The access road is woven through a national forest and has lots of camping available, but only the kind of camping where there is no campfire. Due to the very dry summer, Colorado has posted that the fire danger is very high so no weanie roasts allowed. Although we could ease everyone mind by reminding them that Penny and Kathi are vacationing in Colorado, so you can count on rain to put out the fire...

Since we are all practiced up on driving back to the trailhead we hit the road with confidence. Confidence that there will be only cars headed into the trailhead at this time of day. You see the trailhead is about 6 miles back on an improved gravel road. I think they use the word "improved" here in Colorado with little regard to the meaning of improved. True this road had gravel. True, this road has been graded sometime since the last year, but let's not use the word improved. It was 6 miles of rutted, washed out gravel, occasional boulders sticking up out of the road, and just to keep the speeds down they maintained a heathy batch of rumble strips that ran the entire 6 miles. No seriously, the washer board ruts went the entire 6 miles. Yes, improved is an interesting word choice.

Improved or not we were the only car on the road at this time of the morning. I guess everyone else slept in. Since Mt Massive is a 14'er you are advised to get an early start so you can get up to the top and back off before afternoon thunderstorms. The thunderstorms here can really rock your socks off so you can bet Kathi and I heed that early start warning. Headlamps on, we lock the car and hit the trail at 4:50. The trail is rather nice for the first 3.5 miles. In fact you could call it improved! You only gain 1,000 feet in altitude so it is just a walk in the park. Oh, yes, with headlamps on and lots of clothes as it is 36 degrees.

This part of the hike took us about an hour and half. We put away our headlamps and took off some clothes as the serious uphill was about to start. The views we have once the sun rises are of the surrounding mountains, the town of Leadville, a large lake named Turquoise Lake, Twin Lakes, and Mt Elbert. We have the delightful songs of a single coyote singing a lonesome solo off to our left somewhere. We make a mental note to find out what sort of things a coyote might be singing about at 6 in the morning. I hope it does not translate to " hey, coyote friends, I spy two ladies that we could rustle up over on Mt. Massive..."

That is Leadville is way down below

We"re headed up to the top

We don't see another soul out hiking until just before we get to the final basin before the saddle of Mt. Massive. Some young billy goat of a hiker blew by us like we were standing still. Well perhaps we were standing still when he went by as we might have been trying to catch our breath.

We were able to keep climbing up to the saddle of Mt. Massive with billy goat hiker showing us the way. He was scampering back along the ridge line of the mountain while we were just making it to the top of the saddle. Mt. Massive is really three mountains standing all together. They are all above 14,000 but only count as one of the Colorado 14ers.

Kathi and I really one want to get to the one that is the tallest. So we have to do some ridge walking to get to the last peak. I think there was only one section were both sides of the mountain had fallen away and we were on a section as wide as a sidewalk to work with. No need to panic and hug the ground, just look at what you are doing and believe that if you can manage to walk on a sidewalk, then you should be just fine here. The scramble on this mountain is really what I had expected to find on Long's Peak last year. I believe the Rangers words were: oh yes, it is reasonably as wide a a sidewalk with proven foot and hand holds to help boost you along your way... Instead we found the path as wide as a balance beam with a sheer drop off on one side. Perhaps when the Ranger said sidewalk he actually meant for us to walk sideways sliding one foot along at a time. I don't know it is just a passing thought. But what we are on now seems like a cake walk! As my kindergarteners say, " easy peezy lemon squeezy!"

Sign your name!

Standing on top of the second highest mountain in CO

Ta Da!

At the last peak we find the special 14ers tube. Attached with a cable to a sizable rock is a shatter proof tube containing an iffy pen and a tightly wound wad of pages. These pages are filled with hurried and cheerful signatures of those people who have climbed to the top of this 14er. I pull out the signing sheet and record that Kathi and I had made it to the top. We sit up there and have half a lunch. We are joined by a father, son and their dog, a young fellow from Iowa, and finally by a guy who was out practicing for the lead man contest. A 50 mile trail run, a 10k run, a 100 mile run, and a marathon. Sounds fun? Forget it, thats sounds more like the deadman not the lead man.

Time to leave and start heading down. The trip down seems long. As with all of our hiking trips we seem to find someone to strike up a conversation with. And true to form we run into three backpack hikers who were doing their first section ever of the Colorado Trail. The Colorado Trail runs from Denver to Durango. The three people we were talking to were a father, his adult daughter and a family friend. We talked about all sorts of fun things like great hikes they had been on, 14ers they had been up, and which 14ers sounded like they might be fun to go up. We also spent a good amount of time talking about everyone's Long's Peak adventures. Most all hikers in Colorado have a funny story about Long's. We spent well over a half hour just chatting.

Looking towards Maroon Bells

Time to keep heading down. We make the total trip including chatting time in 10 hours.
We head home to shower up and go out for dinner. We end the night in the hot tub.

What a great day.