Hi everyone,
Thank you all for the helpful advice, shared experiences, and reassurances! I have hiked in the dark before, but never for more than an hour or two, and it was always with a larger group. I know it seems silly that my biggest fear is meeting a bear or lion at night when I probably ought to worry more about the 22 miles and 6500 gain at altitude. I guess it's because I feel like I have control of the physical aspect through training and acclimatization, but cannot prepare myself adequately for encountering a mountain lion that wants to eat me!
I have a great headlamp, will definitely be bringing my poles, and I will forget about the bear spray. Some of you recommended starting later, but I think we really need to start early because I don't know what our pace will be like at altitude, and I don't want to be anywhere near the summit in the event of an afternoon thunderstorm.
In terms of AMS, I have hiked a few 13 and 14ers without noticeable symptoms besides just fatigue, but that was many years ago when I used to live at 7000ft elevation. This time, I'm coming from sea level so I know it will be much different! There aren't really any training peaks near us (Sac and LA) with more than 10-11k elevation, but we'll try to hit Mt Dana and White Mt before our Whitney hike.
Thanks again for all of the useful information, this is really a wonderful community. I will continue to browse this forum and read Whitney trip reports, and hopefully we'll have a successful hike up to the summit (and down)!
