On July 18, 2013, Tracy and I took a long weekend to hike Mt Massive in Colorado. We had tried to hike Massive the year before, but we didn’t have enough time to comfortably do the hike, so we decided to try it again this year over a long weekend. We left Salt Lake on Thursday after work, and spent the night in Fruita, CO. We got up on Friday and drove on to Leadville, taking the long way down Highway 50 through Gunnison and Buena Vista. The drive was nice, and once we got into Leadville we got some Subway and headed to the trailhead. We started the hike around dinner time and headed up to just below tree line for the night.
We got up on Saturday morning and finished the climb up the mountain. We had the hike to ourselves until just below the saddle of the mountain, when we saw someone coming up behind us a mile or so back. We were the first ones on top by a few minutes, but were soon joined by the guy who had been behind us and a couple of other people who came up from the other trailhead. I didn’t find this hike to be as hard as the other 14ers I’ve done, even though it’s the second highest mountain in Colorado. I don’t know if I was just in better shape or what the deal was, but it wasn’t as hard. It still wasn’t easy, though.
Once we got back down, we drove to Parachute where we met our friends, Megan and Jason, for dinner. We spent the night in Rifle, and got up the next morning to meet Megan, Jason, and Rebecca to go hiking on the Grand Mesa. We drove up to the Mesa and did a dayhike with the others. They were planning to spend a couple of days backpacking, but we needed to get back to work, so we spent the day hiking with them, and then headed back home.
I love the 14ers.
[mapsmarker marker=”91″]
