Mount Massive Wilderness

The United States Congress designated the Mount Massive Wilderness in 1980 and it now has a total of 30,540 acres. All of this wilderness is located in Colorado and is managed by the Fish & Wildlife Service and the Forest Service. The Mount Massive Wilderness is bordered by the Hunter-Fryingpan Wilderness to the west.  Mount Massive (14,421 feet), Colorado's second highest peak, and other mountains of the Sawatch Range have two distinctive characteristics: great height, and a huge, sloping bulk that makes them relatively easy to climb. Nowhere along the Continental Divide does the ground rise higher than the Sawatch Range, the crest of this continent. Just south of the Wilderness stands Mount Elbert at 14,443 feet, Colorado's highest summit. The divide marks the western boundary of this area, with the Hunter-Fryingpan Wilderness immediately to the other side. Dry lodgepole pine forests, typical of the eastern slopes of the divide, cover much of the lower elevations and give way to spruce and fir higher up before all trees yield to alpine tundra.