Colorado 14er: Mount Massive (14,427')
Here is a little data and footage from our Mount Massive hike. I was with @elizabethazze and @gadolcharles. Massive is the 2nd highest peak in Colorado, standing at 14,429’. Highly recommend trying to visit during the week and away from holidays but this weekend wasn’t too busy, as most people were trying to summit its higher neighbor, Mount Elbert (14,438’).
We parked near the Elbert trailhead around 5:30am and the parking area was already full. We walked a few miles of dirt road heading in the opposite direction of everyone else, away from Elbert, to the North Halfmoon Creek Trailhead so we could do the clockwise loop. This is a much steeper approach to the summit and the views are incredible the entire way.
We took our time getting familiar with the area and orienting ourselves while naming summits and areas of interest off in the distance. The summit was definitely busy and it was awesome to see many getting after it early in the day but we felt like we were bothering some just trying to tag the true summit as they were eating sandwiches, which was a little weird 😜.
Mount Massive is also the 3rd highest summit in the 48 states, exceeded only by its next-door neighbor, Mount Elbert and California's Mount Whitney. This place is a truly massive area to explore... It has five summits above 14,000 feet along a 3-mile ridge. It has more area above 14,000 feet than any other mountain in the 48 states, slightly edging Mount Rainier in Washington State.
It is part of the Sawatch Range, which was formed by tectonic uplifting, where two tectonic plates (the now gone Farallon Plate grinding below the North American Plate) featured an active, and somewhat rare subduction boundary. It was rare due to the angle of subduction, which was only about 20 degrees or so causing volcanism to occur much further inland than normal. This grinding uplifted the Colorado Rocky Mountains, as well as the entire Colorado Plateau which is known as the Laramide Orogeny. - Summit Post
