The morning started by packing up and dad helping Anita shuttle her car to the trailhead we would be at the next evening. Once we got that done we headed out to the trailhead where we would pack to Mt Massive trailhead. We got on the trail about 9:40. We walked slowly because we gained elevation the whole day. The trail was mostly through pine forest with a few views of the valley and mountains to the east of us every once in a while. We had cell service most of the day! Funny. We made it to the trailhead about 5 pm that evening and set up our tents about .1 mi away at North Willow Creek. We decided to get a 4:30 am start on climbing Mt Massive so we all went to bed early. The camp spot was in a creek bottom/valley so it was cold down there and I was cool most of the night but I had just drifted off to sleep when the dogs went to barking and growling and I got out of the tent to see whAt it was and there were about 10 headlamps bobbing down the trail. It took me a minute to get it in my head what I was looking at. I looked at my watch- it was 10:45pm!!! They all set up tents and stayed just below us. I don’t know if they were going to climb the mountain in the morning or just hiking In ways after work on Friday or what. Crazy though. We camped at 11,200 ft with at least 1200+ elevation change from Leadville but we went up and down so guessing more than that. We traveled 10.2 miles according to my GPS
