"reach the summit in 4-5 hours"
"Since I've never done this summit before"
Anyone besides me raising their eyebrows at this?
(Average time to summit closer to 7 to 9 hours?)
I know a few who can regularly crank out a 5-hour ascent in ideal conditions, but in most cases they're folks who've done this mountain many dozens of times. Doug Thompson gives an average of 10 hours up and 6 down for a main trail first-timer, but that's again just an average based on his experience. A five-hour ascent on one night's acclimation is moving pretty damn fast (and certainly not stopping to smell the sky pilot, so to speak), so yeah, the eyebrows twitched a bit when I read it. Steve D may be a high-altitude beast, and 6300 vf over 11 miles in 5 hours may be doable for him - but not for 95% of us. Hope we hear back after the climb.
