Mt.
Massive
14,421'
June 28th, 2012
54/54/17
Doubt -to be uncertain about; consider questionable or unlikely; hesitate to believe.
"If doubt is challenging you and you do not act, doubts will grow. Challenge the doubts with action and you will grow. Doubt and action are incompatible."
~ John Kanary ~
"If you doubt you can accomplish something, then you can't accomplish it. You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through."
~ Rosalyn Carter ~
Rising
from the Arkansas Valley, Mt Massive is only exceeded in height by its neighbor
to the south, Mt Elbert. If Elbert is
the king of the Rockies, then Massive must surely be its queen. With my parents in town for a week, Karen and
I were able to escape together for a few days to ourselves. We set our sights on hiking two 14ers with
rest day at Mount Princeton Hot Springs in between. When planning for this trip I put a question
out on 14ers.com on which route to take up Mt Massive: the longer (13.5 miles) standard route, or
the shorter (8 miles) but steeper S.W. Slopes.
While I got plenty of responses, I think it was the fact that I was
being lazy, and did not want to hike farther than I had to, that lead us up the
S.W. Slopes. As a bonus I would get to
try the X-terra on a good 4WD rode.
The
road up to the North Half Moon trailhead did not turn out to be all that bad. It was only the last half mile that I
actually needed the 4WD for. I really
wanted to try the creek crossing just past the trailhead, but luckily Karen is
smarter and wiser than me, and vetoed that idea. We set up camp in the field just to the east
of the trailhead, and had the place to ourselves. We turned in early in anticipation of a 5
a.m. wake-up.
I slept restlessly, tossing and turning
throughout the night. I think the climb was weighing on my mind. I was not sure that I was up to the steepness
of the climb. This approach to the
summit gains 3950' in four miles. Doubt
was beginning to set in.
With
the first mile being relatively flat it meant we were in store for a lot of
elevation gain in a short amount of time.
The first mile and a quarter roughly parallels Half Moon Creek, which
was flowing strong for as low of a snow
pack that we had this past winter. We took our time through this section, using
it as a warm up. We were passed by another
couple who had left five minutes behind us.
40 minutes later I began to question if we had missed the trail turn off,
when we passed two backpackers coming
down from Half Moon Lakes, who told us we were almost there. The turn off was well signed and had a large cairn,
so I doubt there was any way we could of missed it.
Once
on the summit trail, the climbing began and kept up all the way to the
summit. Where the trail crossed through
boulders, we had to keep a sharp eye open so we did not lose the trail, as all
the rocks blended together. Karen did a great
job of keeping us on track. While the
trail did climb the entire time, it never felt too steep. At no time did we feel like we were going to
topple over from exhaustion. However, as
we climbed up doubt continued to seep into my mind.
Doubt,
of if I could make it up. Doubt, of why
I was doing this. Was my goal of
completing all 54 "official 14ers"
worthwhile? Was I enjoying this, or was
I just checking another one off? There
is only one way to get rid of doubt. And
that is to keep pushing through, which is what I did. One step at a time!
My
favorite part of the climb was the traverse to the summit after we crossed over
the saddle between South Massive and Massive itself. The east slopes of massive was laid out
before our eyes. All four of Massive's peaks
above 14,000' on were laid out in front of our eyes.. As we made our way across to the summit, the
couple that passed us in the morning were working their way back across
it. We ran into another couple, who
quickly left, at the summit. Once they
were gone we had the summit to ourselves for 30 minutes, until we decided to
head back down.
 |
| Summit |
The only disappointment was that someone had left
a Frisbee on the summit. While their intention was good (it was a gift for
whomever found it), I looked at it as trash, which someone would have to remove
(which I did). I am sure the group of "youngsters" that came up after
us would have really enjoyed the find, but I could not help but thinking it as
defacing the peak somehow. "Take only photographs, leave only
footprints".
While prepping for this climb I had read comments about the white marmots on Massive. I began to think these were in the realm of snipe hunts. So you can imagine my surprise when Karen actually spotted one, sunning on a rock right next to another brown marmot. They do exists!! I have the picture and video to prove it.
While prepping for this climb I had read comments about the white marmots on Massive. I began to think these were in the realm of snipe hunts. So you can imagine my surprise when Karen actually spotted one, sunning on a rock right next to another brown marmot. They do exists!! I have the picture and video to prove it.
The hike down was a little more challenging than we had imagined. Stepping down through the boulders, beat our knees up pretty bad, even with the use of trekking poles. We were both happy to get back down to the flats.
I felt stronger on today's climb, than I did on La
Plata two weeks ago. Hopefully I will continue
to gain strength of each 14er. I love to
be able to do one of these one day and say "that was easy". Until then, I'll just keep taking it - One
step at a time,
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