Mt. Massive – Southwest Slopes

Date: July 30, 2003
Elevation: 14,421′
Rank: 2nd
Route: Southwest Slopes, Grade II, Class 2, 6.2 miles, 3960ft vert.
GPS: N 39° 11.233′ W 106° 28.483′
Team: Matt Esser (Toid), Mark Jaeger (Gugals)

Pre-climb: Anybody who has ever climbed a 14er knows what it takes to climb one. The last thing they want to do is wake up the next morning and even have to *think* about climbing another, let alone, actually doing it. Well, this is exactly what we did. We climbed Mt. Sherman the day before and were now going to climb Mt. Massive via it’s steepest route.

Climb: We forced ourselves out of our tent at 6am. The night went perfect. No bears or any other animals that could eat us appeared in the night. In fact, the night went so well, we fell asleep at 5:30pm the night before. That meant over 12 hours sleep! Yay! I thought Gugals would be harder to get up in the morning, but he got up soon after I did. We packed up camp and made our way to the North Halfmoon Trailhead.

On the way, we forced down our breakfast and were at the trailhead by 7am. We checked the register and found we were the first ones there. It took us a while to get ready, as I had a lot to do. I had to put first-aid on my ankle and heel where my blisters were, apply sunscreen to my body (be sure and check out the Sunscreen Nazi picture below), eat enough food, pack our backpacks, double-check route description, enter GPS coordinates and lock up the car! After all this we were on the trail at 7:30am.

The first thing we noticed when taking the Southwest Slopes route is that the route has changed. No longer does the trail leave the main trail after 1.3 miles like it is mentioned in Roach’s book. It’s now closer to 1.7 miles and at the other end of the meadow. We took a picture of the giant cairn that marks this new trail. The new trail goes directly up the cliff band that Roach says you skirt. This is pretty steep. Gugals didn’t enjoy this part at all. This is again where we split up. I went on ahead and we stayed in contact via radio. Another hiker had joined Gugals and traveled much closer to the same pace as he did. They would hike the rest of the day together. I would sprint on ahead.

Steep. Relentless. Unyielding. The new trail goes directly up Mt. Massive. It’s hard to even take a break on this steep of a slope. It has no sympathy for your blisters or your sore legs. Luckily, all I had was the former. I continued to power up the shoulder of Mt. Massive until I got to a snowfield which I skirted to the lefthand side. Once on the ridge at 13,000ft, I radioed Gugals to check in on him. He was doing fine, hiking with Dale, they were slowly making their way up. I didn’t blame them. This isn’t very easy.

As I pushed higher, the trail grew faint for a while, and then grew stronger the closer to the “saddle” I got. The reason I say saddle in quotes is because the previous trail reaches the saddle at 13,900ft. This new trail reaches the summit ridge above the saddle at 14,200ft and it’s closer to the summit. I radioed Gugals again and he was just now on top of the snowfield.

The summit ridge surprised me. You think because Massive is so big that it’s going to have a relatively big summit. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. There was a ridge that had a good amount of finding handholds and looking for foot placements while crossing. Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t harder than Class 2, but I just wasn’t expecting it. I could now see hordes of Boy Scouts making their way up the standard trail. This didn’t excite me. As of now I’m the only person on the ridge. I wanted to get to the summit before the crowds arrived. I hustled on over, up and over, and down and up and over some more to the summit. What a great feeling! I had tried climbing Mt. Massive in November of 2001 but got turned back due to all the snow, but this time I made it! I took a moment and took in the view.

Shortly after sitting down and eating a snack, more and more people started showing up. Soon there was 30 people on the summit, and they were making all sorts of noise and well, I was humbled by the over-population on a 14er climb. At least we weren’t doing it on the weekend. I finished my feasting and made my way back to the turnoff point for the Southwest Slopes. It took me about 30 minutes. As I descended I spotted Gugals! He was climbing with Dale and they were just under 14,000ft. I quickly made my way down to them, walking on the route so they could see where to go. I told them about the colored wands in the ground to follow, but they were having trouble finding them. When I got down to them, the real story unfolded.

Gugals wasn’t tired, but he was scared from the cliffs he had to climb earlier. He asked about the summit ridge and I told him it had steep drop-offs but was relatively safe. He then asked if it was harder than Sherman. I said of course it was. He then told me he didn’t want to do it if it was scarier than Sherman. There it was. The truth had been told. Here we were at 14,000ft on the side of Mt. Massive and Gugals called it quits. It takes a strong man to do that. To work that hard and be able and say you are satisfied with how far you’ve come and turn around. I am proud of Gugals. We descended together from this point out, after taking some video camera footage of the clouds and surrounding peaks.

When we returned down the steep shoulder of Massive, eventually we arrived at the cliff section again. This time I gave Gugals one of my poles and went down with him to help him down this slippery section. After arriving at the junction to the flat trail, we cruised on back to the trailhead and rejoiced. We had just spent a day on Massive. And we loved it.

Drive: 1h
Ascent: 3.5h
Summit: 30 min
Descent: 4h
Drive: 4h
Total: 8h