CincyHiker: I don't have the level of Whitney experience that some of the other guys who have already responded have, but I can offer my recent personal experience of also being a sea level dweller coming out to Whitney with only three total days to for the trip. (Sound familiar?)
My son and I flew out 10 days ago from Orlando and arrived in Lone Pine mid-day on Saturday. We spent that afternoon at Horseshoe Meadows, (approx 10,000') and camped at HM that night. This only gave us 24 hours of acclimatization time. We hit the trail the next day on Sunday camping at Upper Boy Scout Lake at 11,350'. On Monday, we made it to the summit and hiked out. We did not take Diamox or do anything other than really pound the water. Other than a little heavy breathing and a slight headache for me, we were fine. I do think the night at HM was helpful.
Altitude is a funny thing. It effects people of similar age, BMI, and fitness differently.
Maybe we just got lucky, but I do think we helped ourselves by being in pretty good shape. We didn't train specifically for the trip, but my son plays high school lacrosse and I run/train with a bunch of hard core fast marathoners who do their best to try to kill me. In fact they do such a good job I have only been able to get one marathon in due to being injured a bunch from running with these knuckle heads. (Yeah I know, I need to find a slower group).
I do believe that conditioning helps shorten the aclimatization adjustment window, but there are certainly plenty of very fit people who don't do well at altitude without ample adjustment time.
On a related note, I have been to the summit of the Grand Teton, (13,770), twice with two of my good buddies. We all three live in the same place, are of the same age, have similar body types, and seem to perform at altitude directly proportional to our cardio conditioning. In other words the guy with the best cardio conditioning at the time of the trip does the best and the guy with worst cardio takes the altitude beat down the worst.
I agree with the others, definitely go with the two poles.
Train hard, best of luck and let us know how your do.
Kent Williams
