Hi Steve,
My pack weighed 20 pounds, another pack was 30 pounds, two others were about 35 pounds each, and the last two were 40 pounds each. The altitude didn't seem to be too much of a problem for the four of us "slow pokes," but I did hear from the two that bombed up ahead of us (they were at Trail Camp about two hours before us, I believe - and were the ones with the 40 pound packs, incidentally...!) that they were feeling a bit sick up there. No real AMS symptoms (one guy had a headache), but the altitude likely had something to do with how tired we felt. We've all done hikes longer than the one to Trail Camp, but none at that altitude. I appreciate you trying to chalk up our inability to summit to pack weights and altitude, which I'm sure impacted us a lot, but we all knew we weren't as conditioned as we wanted to be/should have been
We'll do more preparations, more conditioning, and we'll be back!
And Akichow - thanks for the kind words; we all felt pretty proud to have made Trail Camp!
-Caroline
