Mt. Massive is Aptly Named

On Tuesday night Jon and I took off after class to the Mt. Massive Wilderness area outside of Leadville in hopes of summiting in the morning and taking a ski line down the southwest slopes.  With a forecast for some chilly 50 MPH winds for the night and the next day we weren’t all that hopeful for a bluebird day.  After setting up a quick bivy camp and sleeping for a couple hours we took off at around 4 AM up the road to the Mt. Massive trailhead.  Snowshoeing for 3 and a half miles wore me down pretty quick on our way to the southwest slopes we intended to scale.  Post holing through the majority of the trail in some aspen trees (I’m pretty damn close to just buying a split-board) also took its physical toll before we gained the summit ridge.  With tired legs and wind blown faces we finally called it a day at around 13,000’ and took a crusty run  back into the aspen trees.  A     miserable route finding mission took place to get us back on a continuous trail we could ski (snowboard, again, not so hot) back to the trailhead.  We ended up back at the car around 11:30 and were able to make it back to Denver for class at 2 PM.  Quite the morning before learning about the sustainable business practices in developing countries….

     


-Tyler Grubb