Mt. Massive

Today I decided to hike up and run down Mt. Massive. It is right next to Elbert, which I did a couple of weeks back, and just a very small bit smaller (14,421ft vs 14,433ft).

The stats: 13.6 miles roundtrip with 4,370 ft of elevation gain. I got up in 2 hours and 35 minutes, which means it was a 22 minute 47 second pace on the way up. It took me 1 hour and 16 minutes to get down, which is an 11 minute 10 second pace. The total distance of 13.6 miles was covered in 3 hours and 51 minutes which makes a pace that comes out to almost 17 minutes per mile exactly.

The trail leading to the climb is more drawn out than Elbert, and I think that is where most of the added time came in to play. I jogged the flats, and any downs that existed on my way to where the real climbing began.

As I made my way above the tree line, it was partly cloudy, with some dark clouds in the distance. As I got nearer the peak, everyone was headed down. There was some thunder in the distance, but the nearest clouds seemed to be moving on either side of the peak. After a little discussion with the maker, I decided that there was just enough time to summit the peak, snap an obligatory self pho to, and then haul it out of there.

Had to snap a self portrait because no one was left on the peak.

It is a bit surreal to be eye level with the mostly benign dark cloud that had chased the others off of the peak.

Here are the pictures looking West and then East from the summit respectively.

The hike was very good overall.  I am feeling stronger all the time on the climbs, and feeling very confident on the downhills as well.  Within the first 15 minutes of leaving the peak I saw several snow flakes, got sprinkled on by rain, and then a few pellets of hail even hit the ground.  After that it was all sunshine and warm.

There are some fat marmots on this mountain.

For any of those worry warts out there, remain calm, I was keeping a close eye on the clouds the entire time, and would not have continued had I felt it to be life threatening.  

I'll work tomorrow, and take the day off from training, then hit my last tough back to back on Sunday and Monday.