Mt Whitney Zone Forums Trip Reports C2C2C 11/13

You don't have to buy it and welcomed to believe what you want. I'm not laughing at you, but laughing at how you actually think this is something impossible.

Just because you can't (yet) doesn't mean there aren't a lot of people who can. It's actually not hard if you're acclimated and actually train, and well within the capabilities of most people if they'd put in time. You're not getting there in a year, but it's not even close to being some phenomenal feat. I'm one of the slower people in my group of friends and none of them are anywhere close to being competitive at races.

If you were down here in Southern California and frequent San Jacinto's Skyline Ridge during the busier seasons, you'd see how many people can cruise up +8k ft on Skyline in the 2-3 hour range and it's a lot steeper than the sidewalk on Whitney.

That's OK, I don't mind. I got some good advice in this thread thanks to you.

Well they could gain a lot of time on the way down once off the switchbacks by jogging when possible.

How many years of training did it take you to get to a 7 hr RT Whitney hike, and what was your starting RT time? Hours per week of training? The FKT is under 3 hours, so I think 7 hrs is attainable by a dedicated individual.

Reviving a very old thread, but just wanted to point out Strava as a source of time verifications. There are 20+ tracks posted with roundtrip elapsed time under 8 hours. Some average heart rates are included and are in the 130 bpm range, which is definitely nose breathing territory.

https://www.strava.com/segments/4838166

I'm a runner and I thru-hiked the PCT. My roundtrip time for Whitney from the Portal was 11.2 hours a few years ago (pre-PCT). My max sustained rate of ascent is 2,200 ft/hr (tested two weeks ago on Mt. Si in Washington) on a smooth, dry, not too steep trail.