Hey all,
Thank you so much for your encouragement. I would have missed out on a really great experience had I decided to stay home! Instead, I had a wonderful time this week up on the mountain.
I stayed 2 nights at the Horseshoe Meadows/Cottonwood Lakes campground, which were beautiful, and relaxing. A great place to acclimate. The road up is pretty gnarly if you're not used to driving mountain roads, too.
I started my hike on 8/16, and 8am and was up to Trail Camp by noon. I felt like I was barely moving. I just tried to maintain a steady pace, and I ended up finishing pretty quickly. The people I started the trail with got up 7 hours later.
I left camp on 8/17, at ten minutes to 6 in the morn, and summited 9:20. Again, I felt like I was moving really slowly, but I passed about 30-40 people on the way up. The weather was perfect, and I met a lot of really nice people on the trail. I decided to leave straight after I summited, since I couldn't imagine trying to sleep another night at 12,000ft. I developed a really bad case of sleep apnea, waking up 10-15 times in the middle of the night, gasping for air. I've read that this is common above 15,000ft, but I was experiencing it even at 10,000ft, although, much milder. I've never had a problem with this back home, in San Diego. Has anyone else ever dealt with this at altitudes so low? Anyway, 5 hours later I was back at the Portal, getting into my truck.
All told the hike took me a total of 13 hours. I was glad to have done it alone, too. I met more people that way, I could set my own pace, and didn't have to consult with anyone else when making decisions.
