We just finished this hike yesterday. I tried to take some notes for anyone looking at this planning in the future. So many schedules you could take as the distances each day are very manageable, but we consistently started early, finished at hit by lunch and had all meals at the huts and hiked/played between. We had no rain or mud really for us, but I know that can be an issue at times. Fire was our issue.
If you don't rent entire hut you can be sharing with strangers, we had 3 dads and 5 boys aged 10-16. An awesome time and I highly recommend. Lots of great life lessons, no screens, and just great time outdoors.
Day one- To North Pole Hut
Started shorter hike due to a small fire at original trailhead. On trail by 8, Made it to hut by 11. Less than 5 miles. At North Pole hut use the stream probably for the best water. You can burn anything paper in the camp stove, but remember you're gonna have to haul out all those MRE packages. There was a trashcan to leave trash at Blue Lake Huts. We used camp stove for lunch and dinner. We gave the boys all pocket knives with Mt Sneffel Coordinates engraved. They spent the afternoon exploring around the pond, whittling weapons out of sticks, and shooting slingshots they brought. We made oldest three boys go and fill water it 5 gallon containers they provide at huts each day. We were in cabin and in beds by 830 telling stories.
Day 2 to Blue Lakes Hut
We ate MRE or oatmeal breakfast started on the trail about 7 AM. Got to Blue Lake hut a little before noon. It's a lot of downhill until it's a pretty healthy uphill. Then a friendly finish at Blue Lakes hut. Water was much closer stream than N Pole hut. We ate a quick lunch and decided to go on the blue Lakes Trail. This is 3.6 miles to get to the first lake and you could in theory go 6+ miles to see everything. Two dads and two younger guys turned around about a mile in just because it was pretty tough uphill trail and they were tired from morning 7.5 miles. If you do this, be sure to leave all your packs back at the hut and take one pack with water/snacks. Jacket not a bad idea, it was pretty chilly up there. Bring a water filter and you can refill a stream about 3/4 of the way up. It's definitely beautiful but only the 13, 14, 16-year-old and myself made it to the top and back. Note they provide a good drop this night (for $$). We had fruit, bread, PBJ, pancake mix/syrup and a few extra MREs in our drop.
Day 3 to Ridgeway Hut
We had pancakes this morning from the food drop. The good thing was there was a trashcan here that we were able to dump some trash at. Slept hard after the 15 miles the day before. We started hike at 8 AM. It starts out rolling hills, but then you have a pretty hard mile and a half, very steep gain probably the most difficult sections to this point. Make sure you get to the top of the hike to go down Mount Sneffles overlook. Water is a bit more of an effort here. Had cell service if we moved a bit. This is when we got word of Golden Mountain fire that caused a lot of evacuation East of Ouray. The main drive out of Ouray north was shut down. We talked with the SJ huts company to come up with a plan of fire became an issue.
Day 4 to Burn hut
Started seeing some smoke but then winds turned back and we had a pretty clear day. We started hiking about 7:45 AM to get really slow. Lots of breaks and still made it by 1045. It's in an Aspen grove next to a meadow. Beautiful but flies/insects were a bit of an issue causing us to spend a bit more time inside hut than we would have liked. We learned at this point the Dallas trailhead was closed due to being a staging area for the fire. (That is the shorter exit route). So everyone had to take the longer 9 miles out. The issue was we had two in our group that needed to be in Ouray by 1 to catch a shuttle to meet other family. Fire was growing so we again had an extraction plan worked out with SJ Huts should it be necessary. Basically backtracking to a road they could access from the north.
Day 5
Fire still only to East so we left hut at 545 AM. It was a push for the younger boys…some "We can do hard things" talks and dads helping carry bags a bit but all of group made it down between 12-1. The last 3 miles were pretty tough. A couple hard inclines and then we took the "faster" twin peaks trail…faster bc it's 2000 ft down QUICK. Little bit of sliding, a little bit of skill and old knees were feeling it by the end. The dinosaur tracks along way were cool…but to me not a reason alone to take the longer, more difficult route if you needed to be out sooner. I think longer route would have been fine if we didn't need to push as hard for time.
Overall highly recommend and message with questions.
Tips
-don't recommend the MRE breakfast instead just get oatmeal, bars. To reduce space.
-Inflatable pillow is a good idea. Part of us forgot that, but clothes wrapped in jacket fine.
-Maybe bring a twin sheet, use sleeping bag as blanket. They have you bring a sleeping bag liner.
-Bring a ball
-Slingshots were great time for boys
-Didn't use jet stove much bc we made to huts by lunch each day. If you plan to eat on trail maybe more. But one per group fine and the Maple brand off amazon is really pretty great and waaaaay cheaper than jet boil.
-Trek poles definitely needed on some sections
-Food drops- i think Blue Lakes was a good spend but Burn hut drop unnecessary.
I'll update more cleanly later on a computer.
