Thanks for all the replies. I successfully sumitted Whitney this past Saturday with little to no AMS issues.
Here's is how it went.
Thursday night: Drive from SF Bay area (sea level) to Mammoth Lakes(8K ft) via Tioga Pass in Yosemite. Stopped by for an hour for (packed) dinner near east entrance(10K ft). Stayed overnight in Mammoth Lakes.
Friday morning: Drive to Lone Pine to collect my permit.
Friday afternoon: Lunch at Whitney portal. Then hike up the trail till 9k ft to check it out. Drove back to Independence (45 min from portal) to stay in a hotel.
Friday evening: Wanted to sleep for 5-6 hours. But could only sleep for 2.5 hours. Got up, got my backpack ready and had a light dinner.
Saturday 12:15 am: Started driving to Whitney portal.
1:15 am: Started the hike.
5:50 - 6:35 am: Break at trail camp
9 - 9:30 am: Break at Trail Crest
11:10 am: Arrived at Summit
12:10 pm: Headed back down
6:25 pm: Arrived at Portal
Total Ascent time(including breaks): 9:55
Total Descent time: 6:15
I attribute the relative slowness (I expected to be faster than this) to
1. Lack of sleep
2. Reduced food intake ( I only consumer about 2100 calories instead of the 4000 I was carrying)
2. Longer breaks than expected - I was chitchatting with fellow hikers
AMS was not an issue (then again may be the breaks helped). The only issue that can relate to AMS is that I noticed I had a small nosebleed after climbing all the way down.
All in all, brutal but good hike.
