A group of us did a fast effort up Emigrant October 5th, 2024. While Otto's 1:50 roundtrip felt out of reach for me given his incredibly speedy descending, I thought his ascent time of 1:16:21 was attainable so I gave it a good go. It was dry and smoky for October, and the first time that I had done the Gold Prize route without snow in the alpine. The steep parts of the trail were dusty and sometimes slippery, but overall in pretty good condition. While Josh Harrington set out quickly and was leading out of our group for most of the climb, I gained a bunch of time above treeline where the route gets steep, techy, and requires a good balance of smart route choice and efficient movement. Going off the 'EmiSprint Climb' Strava segment, my time was 1:14:03 to the summit, although the segment starts a bit past the gate, not the trailhead, so my watch time from the trailhead was about 1:14:56*. Josh set the second fastest ascent time at 1:15:39. I think sub 1:10 would be an impressive benchmark to target for some speedy folks. Emigrant is the most vertically efficient trail in SW Montana, and as close to a double VK as we get around here, so its a cool fitness test for the vertically inclined, not to mention a beautiful summit.
*I think using the EmiSprint Climb segment is appropriate for measuring ascent times, as some fast efforts (including Otto's) were not registered by Strava in the segment that starts from the Trailhead, potentially due to GPS wonkiness.
**While this attempt was 'supported' due to having a few folks pushing each other, I carried bear spray, water and an extra layer. I firmly believe in carrying bear spray on this mountain.