The best time to do this is mid-late September at the earliest to early-mid October at the latest, so the window is relatively small. The cactus to clouds hike was ranked by Backpacker Magazine as the fifth toughest day hike in the United States! So you can imagine how much more difficult this is when you come ALL THE WAY BACK DOWN. It's gonna hurt, but its a rewarding pain
With that said this is not to be taken lightly and is deceptively difficult and dangerous for the ill prepared. So you all know that your physical preparation is essential. When I did this a couple years ago I had a water cache at about the 4500' marker...crutial, as by this point on the way down it's warming up and there is no water from long valley down to the museum.
The good news is that you can always bail out at the tram either on the way up to the summit or after you summit and are on your way back down to long valley. So it's very important to make sure there is no scheduled maintenance on the tram for the day selected
so this option is available.
Any thoughts on this? I don't hear too much about doing C2C2C on this blog and thought it would be fun to get a group to do it. I know it's endlessly boring and "flat" (compared to the hike up to long valley) from LV up to the summit but this hike is all about elevation gain/loss, the miles and the downhill...did I mention the downhill
