There are officially 54 fourteeners in Colorado, the mountain peaks above 14,000 feet that have long been a fad to climb, although some sources count a slightly higher number depending on whether sub-peaks with certain minimal elevation differences between them and the nearby higher peak are included. I have summited 29 of those 54, and Mount Massive is the only one I've tried to climb but have not successfully summited. Massive is also the nearest one to Denver I haven’t summited, so for those reasons the peak’s been high on my list to "bag".

Mount Massive is located in the Sawatch Range just west of Leadville and thoroughly dominates the view in that direction, a gigantic whaleback with numerous sub-peaks that gives it a very different appearance from other peaks in the area, including the slightly taller Mount Elbert (highest in the state) a short distance south . There are several possible routes to the summit, but all are long and involve a greater than 4,000 foot elevation gain. The easiest route follows the Colorado trail for several miles from the trailhead before climbing toward the peak and is about a 12.5 mile round trip.

My first unsuccessful attempt was in the summer of 2000 with my friends Marc and Charlotte. They were both thinner and a little younger than I was at the time (and still are!) and managed to summit. I had gotten most of the way up before the sky turned an ominous-looking gray, although as best I can recall we weren’t hit by much more than light showers on our descent. Lower danger of lighting is one advantage of September fourteener hikes compared to earlier in the season. I can think of at least four peaks I climbed with my brother over the years – Castle Peak, La Plata Peak, Uncompaghre Peak, and Mount Sneffels, but there may have been more.

Doug and I managed a pre-dawn start from our hotel in Vail, breakfasted at sunrise on massive smothered breakfast burritos at the Golden Burro Café in Leadville, and made it to the trailhead for a respectably early start . The morning was cold and crisp and the trails started out dry and snow free. As we got above treeline, though, we started running into some deep snow drifts that slowed down our progress as we sank in knee deep and sometimes waist deep. They weren’t easy to avoid and we hadn’t considered bringing snowshoes. As we continued higher there were fewer spots of deep snow but much of the way was covered in ice and the wind started howling. Probably about 600 vertical feet or so from the summit a gust knocked us both off our feet and sliding down the icy slope.

We decided at that point we weren’t going to make the summit, and if we did there was some danger we might get blown off, so best to turn around and head back. Foiled a second time in my attempt to ascend Mount Massive. Interestingly, we didn’t see another person the entire day on our hike but could see Leadville the whole way up once we got out of the trees and had strong telephone signal all the way.