I would disagree with your statement stating season hikers with extensive back country experience.
I was able to summit Whitney on my first attempt (day hike)I only came across two individuals that did not make the summit one a day hiker and one an over night hiker.
I've been hiking for about a year.
Briang191, how old are you, what do you do to stay in shape?
Steve I'm 35 and I use to run 5 days a week and hike on Sunday's. I suffered a foot and leg injury about 6 months prior to my Whitney day hike. I had to scale back and stop running. I only hiked once a week for my training for whitney. I gained about 15 lbs and wasn't in best shape. I've just recently got back into running during the week.
How do you determine if someone has extensive back country experience?
I don't know about the "extensive backcountry experience". But all I know is that at 65, Whitney is waaay more difficult than it was 30 years ago -- when I ran 3x per week. I recall back then I did the day hike with 2 others, and we were up and back in under 11 hours! This time, it took over 15, and we used the shorter MR on the way up! ...and I still workout--hard, 3x/week.
