“How was Timp? I am thinking of taking my scouts up it next spring.”

That was one of the funnest hikes I ever did. I am impressed that kids can do it. It is labeled ‘strenuous’. We saw two girls that were 9 yrs old going with their dad. They left about 5pm and were going to camp halfway up; then summit the next day. They’ve done it before.

We ran into one scout troop of about 9; an interesting story… thread drift here.
First a little background. We did this trip by leaving Thurs Aug 20th at 2:30pm. Our goal was Emerald lake. It took us 5 hours to go 7 miles. And it was straight up. I drank ½ gal of water throughout. My cousin and I weren’t quite used to that altitude yet and it was hard getting there. I got lost twice. The next day we got up and left Emerald at 8:30am and summited Mt. Timp. at 11:30am. That’s about 1 mile/hour. It got steeper the closer you got. We followed the trail. On the way down, we were told we could save an hour by going across the north-side snow bank (not going down the ‘glacier’). We did. That was fun and it only took us 2 hours from the summit back to Emerald Lake. At the lake, there was a scout troop of about 9 that started from the Aspen trailhead in the morning. They were huffing and puffing at the lake. One scout came to me and said “Are you the guy with the Purifier?”. Hmmm, “Yea I have a Purifier”. The scout said, “We were told you were coming and I’m real thirsty.” I really didn’t know what he was talking about. Apparently some ranger told him another ranger would be up their purifying water. I didn’t see any ranger. The scout only drank 1qt on the way up and he was dehydrated. I gave him a quart. He drank in 10 seconds. I gave him another quart. Another scout came and wanted water. I gave him some. I asked if any more scouts want water. The scout master told me they were all right now. They WERE going to summit Mt. Timp but they had no energy left. So they started descending back down. My lady cousin and I resupplied w/ water and headed down. We passed the scouts. They were hurting. I could tell some of them were going to get hammer toes with their boots. My cousin gave them some more water as we passed them. Since they were getting UV burn, my cousin gave them some sunscreen.

I loved the mountain goats (they cleaned up my camp) and the hummingbirds up there at 10K.

So my personal take is-- it’s easier to summit if you take 2 days doing it.

-Barry