It took us about 4-5 hours to summit from the lakes, the down hike was ~2.5 with a few longish breaks. Had we taken the rocks up, we would have shaved at least 1/2 hour off compared to the scree slog we did.
We hiked from trailhead to the lakes in just over 3 hours FYI 7am-10:15am or so). Left the lakes around 11am-ish give or take and summitted around 3:45p (3:00p for the fastest in our group - but he did take a 15-20 min nap at one point)we spent somewhere around 20-30 mins on the top and were down to army pass within about an hour and a half from the summit. We were back at camp a bit before 7pm.
If I had to do it over again, I'd summit on day 2 rather than on day 1 of an overnight backpack, the hike out from the lakes is quite easy. That slog up the scree (the unavoidable part before the boulder/rock section) is HARD in my opinion - coming down ain't so bad but going up feels like two steps forward one step back...
Thanks for the info.
Based on your hiking time, would it be reasonable to say 13-15 hrs hiking time as a day trip?
For comparison sake, how does this compare to what you'd plan on for a Whitney day hike?
