Congrats Jake and your wife! And thanks for the conditions report and pictures.
With a 12:45 round trip, you two are in great shape. I am curious what you do for conditioning.
Also, I had to look up whippet. Still not sure... a dog? a whif of Nitrous oxide from whipped cream canister? Or guessing here -- a canister of oxygen?
Besides the "headache in a bottle", what did you do for water on the hike?
I've been doing Mtn Athlete Base Fitness twice a week in the morning for years. Other than that my training is as capricious as the Alaskan weather. I did a lot of peakbagging this summer where I'd take a really light pack, run where I could and hike the rest. I put in some pretty big days this way, and did a lot of long trail runs. My wife did an Ironman in June and runs 3:30 marathons so I just do what I can to keep up with her!
Seriously, though, we weren't going that fast. We took half a dozen rests, including probably 45 minutes at the top. I bet someone who nodded in the direction of acclimatization and made an effort to jog intermittently could probably do it in around 10 hours.
The whippet is a ski pole with a small ice axe head. That and micro-spikes are my dirty tricks for fast peakbagging. They open up a lot of terrain to getting climbed in trail runners. Although boots, proper crampons, and and ice axe still have there place, you will slow down a lot on easy, snowy terrain compared to the whippet/micro-spike/trail runner setup.
For water, I carried a 2-liter Platypus Big Zip (awesome product which I highly recommend). It was full when I started and I refilled (~1.5 liters) on the descent at the first lake at the base of the long section of switchbacks.
Let me know if you have any other questions. I love to talk training and gear.
