I generally don't mind answering questions on the trail as I think it does build a camaraderie and helps to share info. But I just got slightly burned a couple of weeks ago by a backpacker who gave me unsolicited (but at the time I thought welcome) information.

We were climbing up to a pass and she told us that she had not gone all the way up two nights before, but had camped in a saddle because it looked quite difficult. That following day she dayhiked up to the pass and talked about how dicey it was with lots of snow and boulders as big as houses that had to be scrambled over.

I trusted her judgement since she had hiked all of the JMT. So when we came to a snowfield and some scrambling only about 200 yards up the trail that we managed to get through (and supposedly this was not the bad stuff), I had a discussion with the other adult and we decided that with the seven boys we had with us, we should look for a campsite nearby and call it a day. I probably would have gone on if just with capable adults, but I was in no way risking boys whose parents had entrusted me with them. We actually found a great spot (see the pictures below) where the boys were able to slide on the snow and have a snowball fight, so it turned out pretty good.

Later that day, I asked if any wanted to explore further up the trail. Six of us took off with light packs to see how bad it was. The trail was uneventful to the next high lake where the boys enjoyed taking pictures of the floating ice. We saw three others who were coming down from a day hike from their backcountry base camp and talked with them a bit. From where we were, we could see almost up to the pass.

It turns out that the woman we had talked to earlier in the day had taken the wrong route, which did have some boulder scrambling and some snow, but we could now see her route completely and it wasn't nearly as bad as envisioned. It was getting late, so we headed back to camp.

The next morning four of us climbed to the pass and the correct route was not nearly as bad as we were led to believe. We did have some snowfields and some boulders, but they were quite manageable. With the morning sun bathing the mountains to the west, it turned out great.

I generally try to assess the abilities of the person providing info and also the person I am providing info to. It is interesting to hear 20-somethings say one thing about difficulty versus others that are not nearly in the same shape or experience level. Well, live and learn and in this case I made the wrong assessment, but it turned out perfectly fine.