Mount Massive Mount Massive Mount Massive is the second-highest summit of the Rocky Mountains of North America and the U.S. state of Colorado. The prominent fourteener of the Sawatch Range is located in the Mount Massive Wilderness of San Isabel National Forest, west-southwest (bearing 247°) of the City of Leadville in Lake County, Colorado, United States. Mount Massive edges out the third-highest summit of the Rockies, Mount Harvard, by , but falls short of Mount Elbert by . It ranks as the third-highest peak in the contiguous United States after Mount Whitney and Mount Elbert. Mount Massive was first surveyed and climbed
Mount Elbert change rapidly, and afternoon thunderstorms are common in the summertime; hailstorms and snow are possible year-round. An electrical storm on the mountain's summit was considered remarkable enough to be reported in the July 1894 issue of "Science". Mount Elbert is part of the Sawatch Range, an uplift of the Laramide Orogeny which separated from the Mosquito Range to the east around 28 million years ago. The tops of this range were heavily glaciated, leaving behind characteristic summit features and other such clues. For example, the base of Elbert on the eastern side exhibits large igneous and metamorphic rocks deposited when