I made it to the spot where my friends had already set up camp around 11.45 pm after about a two hour drive. I rolled out my sleeping pad and sleeping bag in the back of my Jeep and slept until my alarm went off at 3 am. We had originally wanted to reach the summit at sunrise so we could watch it from 14,421 feet. We didn't leave quite early enough for that, but we were at the trailhead by 4.30 am (I had a slow crew to break camp with).
It was pretty close to a new moon, so it was very dark and the first two hours of our hike were in the pitch black, hiking through the woods with headlamps. Without the moon, though, the stars were incredible. We stopped several times and turned our headlamps off just to admire them. About the same time we made it to the tree level (a little over 11,000 feet), the sky had become just light enough that we could hike without our headlamps. Here's the sun just starting to glow in the valley 1,000 feet below.
From there, we had another 2.5 miles to hike and nearly 3,500 vertical feet to gain. That is a very steep assent. The hike was similar to climbing thousands of loose, rocky, steep stairs for three hours. By 8.30 am, after around 4 hours of hiking, we'd reached the summit. I was in a bit of a hurry to get back down because I had to be back in Denver to work at the ski show by 3 pm. I spent about a half hour on the summit basking in the sun, eating, and relaxing before the hike down.
I left my group at the summit around 9 am, hoping to make it back to my Jeep by 11. After I'd gotten only a couple hundred yards from the summit, I saw a family of mountain goats. I think they were as interested in us as we were in them.
The hike down was as challenging as the trek to the top. I maintained a pretty quick pace on the way down, nearly jogging at times. The hike up and the brutally steep decent had my quads shaking with each step down. I had to stop several times and sit down to rest my legs. I didn't have time to waste, though, and forced myself to keep moving. In spite of my breaks, I made it back to my Jeep before 11 am, less than two hours after leaving the summit and less than half the time it had taken to reach it.
It took every bit of the four hours I had left to drive back to the cabin, shower, and drive to Denver in time for work at the ski show. I was physically exhausted, but made it through the show and the drive back home before collapsing in bed. My legs were incredibly sore the next two-and-a-half days, but climbing Mt. Massive has been one of the highlights of my summer.
The rest of the pictures are on flickr.
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