Prelude

I know others have day tripped North Massive & Massive in winter, but most of the winter trip reports I saw were either not day trips or indicated going up and down the east ridge from Massive's main summit, doing the traverse between the peaks twice. I did a practice run of the route I'll describe on November 30, 2017 to see if I thought it would go in a day in winter; it went really well yesterday, so I thought I'd go ahead and write it up in case a trip report is helpful to someone down the road.

The Hike - January 2, 2019

Stats:
Solo
Mileage - my InReach says 13.2 miles
Vertical ~5,000'
Round Trip Time - 12:23 car to car from the Fish Hatchery

I left my house at 3:30 AM and drove to the Leadville Fish Hatchery trailhead. It was a little brisk as I pulled in at 5:40 AM. I geared up and started walking at 6:00 AM on the dot.

The forecast called for a cold, but clear and most importantly calm day (wind forecast was 5-10 mph - it ended up being 0-5 mph - basically non-existent). There was a well established trench up past where the Highline Trail crosses the Colorado Trail, but the trench ended in the clearing around 11,400'.

I knew I wanted to do North Massive first so I could come down Mt. Massive's east ridge route and end up back at this clearing. I had bolted on the tails for my snowshoes to give myself a bit more flotation knowing that I was solo and that it was unlikely that anyone had been up North Massive this winter before me. That was a good call. I left the clearing and aimed northwest towards the east ridge that provides easy passage to North Massive. It is not easy getting there though with no trench. I followed my track from November of 2017 and gradually got to the area below the ridge.

I didn't love the look of getting to the ridge crest in very many places. Even though the avalanche danger was only at yellow, I didn't feel like taking my chances and going up anything remotely suspect. I saw a rocky area on the ridge a little higher up that looked like it would provide safe passage and made my way towards that.

Once on the ridge, I aimed for the right hand of the dual spines on the ridge and hung pretty close to that for the duration of the ridge. The summit of North Massive is directly above that right hand spine.

It had taken me 6:52 to get to the summit of North Massive, 52 minutes longer than my 11/2017 dry run, but I was still pleased due to more trenching work this time.

The descent off of North Massive can be a touch tricky. I switched from snowshoes over to crampons. My axe never came out, but it was with me in case needed. I went over to the false summit, then descended from there, initially taking a scrambly path down, but one that cliffed out slightly more than I was comfortable with on a winter solo. I backtracked and found an easier and safer path down by going farther east and coming back around to the south on a snowy ramp.

Once down at the saddle, I worked my way up some snow on the east side of the ridge to regain the ridge crest. Once back on the ridge crest, large blocks prevent you from staying on the ridge crest. I took the advice of a friendly goat who was kind enough to leave me his tracks and dropped a few feet down the right hand (west) side of the ridge crest where there were a few exposed Class 2+ moves to get back to the ridge crest. Once that was done, the rest of the ridge was a breeze.

The drop to the saddle between Massive Green and the true summit is nothing and the climb up to the true summit goes quickly from there. After having taken a leisurely snack break, snapped lots of photos, had to backtrack once on the North Massive downclimb, etc., I was on top of Massive Green at 8:28 elapsed time and the true summit at 8:59 elapsed time. Since it was about 3:00 PM and I was a long way from my car, I didn't stay on top long. The Mt Massive east ridge route comes directly up to Massive's true summit, so I just headed straight down its east ridge.

I flew down 1,700 vertical feet in the first hour after leaving the summit, but still wanted to be back down in the trees on my original path before dark. The upper part of the descent ridge is easy. The slightly more difficult sections (Class 2+ max if you take your time to find the path of least resistance) are down as you curve back left (north) with the ridge.

A key landmark on the descent is this prominent rocky point in the trees shown by the arrow. When you come down off the ridge and prepare to head into the trees, you want to aim for that rocky outcropping and end up on the left (north) side of it.

Around this area, I found an old set of ski tracks that I followed from the north side of the rocky outcropping that took me the rest of the way back to where I ventured off the established track and trenched over to North Massive.

Once I was back at the clearing where I had broken off for North Massive, I cruised down the rest of the well-established approach trench. It was pretty close to a new moon last night, so I had to break the headlamp out for the last hour or so, but was back at my car at 6:23 PM. I didn't see another soul all day until I was nearly back down to the Fish Hatchery when a cross country skier (also with headlamp) zipped past me. After a quick dinner at Subway in Leadville, I headed for home and was there before 9:00 PM. Nice little winter solo day trip.

Thanks for reading and I hope this is helpful.