14ers.com - Trip Report - Mt Massive

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Peak:	Mt. Massive - 14,421 feet
Posted By:	repcool
Post Date:	11/09/2008
Date Climbed:	11/08/2008

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Mt Massive - Southwest
We slugged it out on Mt Massive for almost 10 hours and were very happy with the results. Unfortunately, due to the accuracy of both my Garmin Vista GPS and SPOT in tracking mode I have to report that we made only a false summit to the south of the true. Like any good Captain, I have to write the truth in my log. Lesson learned here, read and understand trip reports better and dial in the summit in the GPS ahead of time. Regardless, it was a great day. Motionbased details and map - http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/7117811 I managed to get my Subaru Legacy up the dirt road and even most of the way up the 4WD road. Cutting fresh snow most of the way, 2-4 inches. Got turned around .3 miles from the trail head to SouthWest route. The trail took us through the valley. I had upload the GPX track to my GPS and about this time I dialed in the waypoints because I honestly had no idea where we were going. My teammate pushed on in a general UP direction. I tended to hang back and work the waypoints to figure out a more tried and tested approach, sticking to a trail! Teamwork at it‘s best. The clouds never came all the way in but they certainly were teasing us all day. The traverse was in sight, and what really took me back was the fact that we were already well above 14k. We made a false summit and then pushed on to another. The clouds were fuzzing with us in all angles and we were both comfortable that we had the summit. The GPS was also reporting a higher altitude than we were really at, by about +30ft, nothing unusual there but it added to our evidence. The sun was threatening to depart so we made the call to head down. Treated to a nice sunset glow. Either way it was a long and rewarding day. Next time, better knowledge of the summit from trip reports and better planning on the navigation, that would of saved us some time. Bottom line, dayz.
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Comments or Questions (4)

53_Peaks	I‘ll Give you Credit 2008-11-09 20:37:34 Awww... give yourself a check mark in your Peaks‘ list. According to Google Earth, you were only 1/8 of a mile from the true summit! We just did Massive in September. That ridge could be a little tricky with foggy conditions.
George Kaplan	Sunset glow 2008-11-10 08:37:15 Great picture of the sunset! It looked like you were still pretty high up when the sun started going down. What time did you end up getting back to the trailhead?
repcool	Sunset Glow 2008-11-10 09:24:20 George, we got back to the main TH around 19:00. We hadn‘t fully planned on a dark return but we were equiped for one and the half+ moon with little cloud made for a pleasurable dark trek.
George Kaplan	Cool. 2008-11-11 08:16:07 Sounds like it was a good time. Good job!

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