Four from our group successfully submitted on August 30.
We are from bay area and could find hikes with distance and very little elevation. Mission peak and Rose Peak hikeswere two good ones we used for training.
We stayed one night at Mammoth Mountain Inn, We had a day permit and as advised in the forum we started around 2.30 and reached summit at 1.30 PM. Weather was picture perfect with no trace of clouds and we could see people on the switchbacks trying to head to summit on our way back to trail camp. We took plenty of breaks to help acclimatize. We took it very slow about 1.25 miles per hour and other than very mild headache did not see any AMS related symptoms. Thanks to Steve C and others in this forum for valuable insight to take it slow for first timers like us , to me this seems to have made a big difference on our hike. Trail Crest to Summit felt the hardest for us and switchbacks were grinding. Felt Outpost camp to trail side meadow was very hard. Descent also took 10-11 hours approximately. We took few hours rest and drove back to bay area.
regards
deepa
