Thanks so much for the advice on hike time. I'm used to reading trail reports and hearing hiking times as 8-9 hours at a "strenuous" pace then finishing them in 6. I'm in shape, but don't consider myself to be incredibly so.
I'll start out on the trail earlier and now place my expectation lower at something like 16 hours. Reading posts it seemed that 7-8 hours to summit would be a moderate to "strenuos" time, which I've always been able to meet in other hikes. I've been hitting up the San Gabriels (Baldy, Wilson) and went to Zion during the summer.
Eugene, would you be interested if we take a slower pace and start earlier in the day? I'm fine waking up as early as possible. I'm not doing the hike for time, but rather just to accomplish it. I'm totally fine going at a slower pace and probably underestimated the difficulty before.
