We were up early this morning at 3:55 to get ready to climb Mt. Massive. It was pitch black and cold. We got on the trail by about 4:45 and climbed in the dark for the next 1.5 hrs – sunrise came at 6:45 as we were at 12,500+ feet or so. It was cool to see the clouds below us covering the valley over Leadville. We climbed and climbed and finally reached a saddle between at 13,000 ft peak and Mt.Massive. Then we got onto a ridge and followed it up to the peak….. But it was not the true peak you had to a little farther to go to the next pile of rocks- and then we thought we were there. There was no geological marker so we were guessing……b/c we were the first ones up! And there was nobody to ask! That was a first for me 🙂 Pretty cool! We sat up there for a long time as people came and went enjoying the view and conversation. We started back down about 9:45 or so and Lila and I decided to go straight down the mountain and cut across to the trail. It was a fun hike down the front of the MT. Then we hiked across the alpine meadow back to the trail and we saw some ptarmigans as we were almost back at the trail.
The rest of the day was hiking back to our camp and then to the trail head. We were eating lunch and a group of men camp up the trail and were looking for a campsite to hike Mt Massive the next day. So we packed up and let them move in. We hiked slowly down the trail to the parking lot where we said goodbye to Anita and Lila. Then Cristin and I set up camp at the foot of the trail heading back up the mountain. We were debating Mt.Elbert for the next morning. But we’re pretty tired from the early morning and long day. So decided to think abut it in the morning. We went to sleep with Kemba keeping watch ;). She was not impressed with the cars going by. I had some service so I called Casey as well. We also got an awesome bear hang tonight. It’s the little things you know 🙂
