I was one of 11 in our group. We had overnight permits for Oct 1st - 2nd with the plan to spend one night on the mountain.
3 members of our group decided that they would leave earlier and changed their permits so they could enter on the 30th of Sept. 3 other members changed their permits to day hike it on the 1st of Oct. We all set out at different times and different days, not sure what we were going to encounter on the mountain. The weather was changing rapidly with chances of thunder storms on Friday and Saturday. I was a member of the last group of 5 entering around 10 am. We knew we would run into the other members of our original group, but we weren't sure when. It started to hail on us just below trail side meadow and the wind was picking up. We ran into the 3 that had set out on Friday who all had summited on Saturday and were on their way back down to Outpost camp. We made it to Trail Camp and went about setting up camp and starting dinner. It was freezing and super windy at this point. We were wondering how the 3 day hikers were doing. We hadn't seen them yet. We ate dinner and were getting ready for bed when we spotted them. They were very tired and cold and heading down much later than they had expected. All 3 had summited. We were in our tents for about 12 hours, the wind was roaring all night and I was wondering if my tent would hold up, but it did. We finally got the courage to get out of the tents and head up towards the summit at around 7 am. We all summited together. I had serious doubts that all 11 of us would summit, but we did. All in our own ways. Of the 11 of us, 7 were taking Diomox. I truly think it help me. I feel altitude at 9,000 feet and I felt great the entire hike.
And just a side note, the Marmots didn't touch our tents at trail camp. I'm glad we got to go up before the snow storm that hit later the next week. We were truly lucky!
