Mount Massive - 14421' - SW Slopes Class 2
September 2011

Closing in on the summit of Mount Massive

Remnant dark clouds to the north near the summit

I did Mount Massive via its steep south slopes route from the Halfmoon Creek Trailhead with Corey. This was a fun climb since we didn't get started until around 1pm since I had to stay in Golden that Saturday morning for practice. It was an interesting morning as a cold front had moved through and everyone who started early to climb Mount Massive had turned around due to heavy rain and hail, strong winds and zero visibility. We saw many people headed down the trail as we headed up. This was one of those days where a late start was a good thing. The weather improved a lot during the afternoon to the point where we could see all the surrounding mountains, the wind had died down and we actually had some sun. We made quick time heading up the trail to the saddle between Massive and South Massive. We hit fresh snow around 13,600 feet and the final traverse to the summit was under a couple inches of frsh snow which made the scene very pretty. Looking across the valley to Mount Elbert was beautiful (see banner above). We were the only ones to summit on this bust September Saturday because of our late start and avoiding the morning storm. It was still quite windy at the top but the beauty was top notch. The conditions were perfect for taking photos. Once we got too cold though we began running down the trail and by 5pm we were back at the trailhead. We drove as far as we could up the Montezuma Basin road in Corey's Jeep and found a nice spot to camp. That next day we planned to climb Castle and Conundrum Peaks which would prove to be a beautiful day with the fresh snow that had just fallen. See the trip report for this climb here!

Mount Massive summit

View west from the summit

Mount Elbert on the left

Remnant low clouds over Massive Green