EasternSierra wrote:ashbal wrote:I have done 20 miles Round trip and reached the summit which is 4000 feet high from sea level in about 12 hrs. It may or may not take 12 hrs for me in Mt Langley but if I start early may be around 4 at the trail head, we might come back around 4 in the evening and then we have a 6 hrs drive back to Sunnyvale,CA. Hence the early start.
I don't know how good of shape you're in (perhaps you're a professional runner or something) but I think your plan sounds pretty ambitious and a good recipe for a headache. You should at least sleep at the Cottonwood Lakes trailhead to acclimatize before you start your day hike.
I did Mt. Langley on July 4, 2010. We backpacked to Cottonwood Lake #2 (~11000ft), slept there, started hiking around 8 or 9, and probably got back down to camp at 4 or 5 in the afternoon pretty tired. You're talking about sleeping at Lone Pine (~4000ft), driving to the trailhead, doing a 20+ mile hike from 10,000ft to 14,000ft, and then driving back to Silcon Valley afterwards. Good luck with that!
Not all that crazy... I once left Davis at 1PM, drove to Whitney Portal, dayhiked Whitney by moonlight, and then drove home by 9PM the following day. so that's roughly 700 miles of driving and 22 miles of hiking in 32 hours. Didn't feel great on the summit, but managed nonetheless. YMMV