14,421 ft.

August 30, 2001

By Tim Briese

Brian and I left Leadville under a star-filled sky a little before 5 a.m. and drove to the North Halfmoon Creek Trailhead. The last half mile of the road was too rough for a car so we left Brian’s car at the Mt. Massive Trailhead and four-wheeled the rest of the way in my truck. At 5:30 we headed up the North Halfmoon Creek Trail in the damp chilly air of the early morning, using our flashlights to find our way in the darkness for the first twenty minutes or so. The fine trail took us up a valley along the east side of North Halfmoon Creek into the Mt. Massive Wilderness Area. After an hour we stopped to eat breakfast on a large flat rock while we enjoyed an inspiring sunrise view of Mt. Elbert about four miles to the south.

Continuing on, we soon left the trees and followed the trail up across pleasant grassy benches well above the glassy North Halfmoon Lakes into a high basin directly below Massive’s steep west slopes. A fine view unfolded to the west and south, and I gazed across the valley at Mt. Oklahoma (13,845'), pondering a return here one day to climb it. It was exciting for me to visit this new and beautiful place I had never been to before. I was looking forward to reclimbing Massive, too, for my only previous ascent of it was fifteen years before, by way of the standard east slopes route.

There was a glistening coat of frost on the rocks and plants along the trail, signaling the end of the fleeting summer at these high elevations. When we crossed a minor stream I noticed a dangerous glaze of ice on the rocks and warned Brian to watch his footing. We climbed a steep grassy slope above a mirror-like pond lying in a shallow basin. From this point we hiked to the north, staying to the right of a massive tower that lay at the end of a minor ridge that ran to the south from North Massive. The trail had all but disappeared by now. At about 13,000 feet we climbed into an upper basin which lay between this minor ridge, which was above to our left, and the main Massive/North Massive ridge, which towered above to the right. The summit of North Massive lay directly before us at the head of the basin. We hiked about 200 yards up across a gently sloping field of snow that lay snugly in the upper end of the basin and then tediously worked our way up a steep slope of scree and talus to the left to gain the crest of the ridge above at 13,800 feet.

Once atop the ridge we found ourselves at the edge of an enchanting area about a quarter of a mile across that was remarkably gentle. I don’t know if I have ever seen a place so broad and gently-sloping at such a high elevation in the Colorado mountains. After a well-deserved break we proceeded to ascend the broad southwest shoulder of North Massive on pleasant, carpet-like tundra that lay amidst the rocks.

At 9:20 we stepped atop the magnificent summit of North Massive, at 14,340 feet. We were treated to grand views of numerous summits all around, and we studied the incredible ridge that we would soon follow to Massive’s main summit and beyond. After resting for a few minutes we dropped down and scrambled over to the rocky crest of North Massive’s slightly lower eastern summit, which lay about fifty yards to the east of the western one. Clouds began to pop up rapidly in the hazy blue sky that had otherwise been clear only a few minutes before.

From the eastern summit we cautiously made a steep descent on scree and loose rocks to a minor saddle below to the southeast and proceeded to scramble along the rough ridge beyond. We worked our way around the left side of some rock towers and soon reached the main saddle between Massive and North Massive, at about 14,060 feet. North Massive is very close to qualifying as an official 14er in its own right, the question being whether it rises 300 feet above this saddle. I later wished I had taken elevation readings with my GPS at the summit and the saddle to throw some light on this question, but I never thought about it at the time.

The ridge’s greatest difficulties were behind us now, and we found a trail that we followed gradually upward along the eastern side of the ridge. About a quarter of a mile from the saddle we left the trail and climbed a couple of hundred feet up to the 14,300 foot summit of Massive Green, the second of four 14,000 foot summits along Massive’s mighty ridge that we would climb today.

A light shower of sleet began to fall on us as we continued upward along the ridge to the main summit of Massive. It felt good to set foot on the state’s second highest summit once again, after my fifteen year absence. This lofty perch seemed more airy than I remembered it from before. We gazed down into the North Halfmoon Creek drainage far below to the west, and admired the lengthy ridge that stretched away to the north and south.

After a few minutes on the summit we descended south along the ridge, following the main Mt. Massive Trail, going around or over several bumps on the ridge along the way. When we reached the 13,900 foot saddle between Massive and South Massive we stopped to assess the weather and our schedule to determine if we had enough time to continue on to the summit of South Massive. After deciding that we did, we quickly climbed a quarter of a mile to the 14,132 foot southern summit, pleasantly surprised that it took only twelve minutes to get there from the saddle. At this point we had come about two miles along Massive’s mighty ridge from North Massive. The sun now reappeared, and we rested briefly on a rock in the pleasant sunshine before retracing our steps back down to the saddle.

Dark clouds were building up to the southwest as we dropped off the saddle and headed down toward the North Halfmoon Creek drainage far below, on a route that Roach describes as Massive’s southwest slopes route. The day’s first rumble of thunder soon reverberated through the air. There was a crude trail down this slope but it was very steep. This was a great route for a fast descent, but it would be a miserable way to go up unless a better trail with switchbacks is built. We descended a whopping 2700 feet to the floor of the valley below in just over an hour. That was the greatest amount of elevation change on a continuous slope that I could ever remember on a hike.

We rejoined the North Halfmoon Creek Trail when we reached the valley. Light rain began to fall on us as we hiked back down the trail through the woods to the trailhead, where we arrived at 1:45. We hiked about nine and a half miles and climbed 4600 feet of elevation gain on this adventure. It was a fine tour of Massive’s lofty and impressive ridge, and I gained a new understanding of how the mountain got its name.

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