Originally Posted by
RockDoc
We did Longmire to Mowich Lake in 13 hours, starting in the dark and finishing in the dark. Yes, that was tough, but you can do it if you hike strong for enough hours (again, not for Novices). This was our second day, after hiking from White River to Longmire. Our third day was Mowich Lake to White River, which for some reason seemed to get easier. So we did it in 3 consecutive days, but after a lot of training that winter, spring, and summer. My wife drove the van around, with our camping gear. We spend night two in Longmire Lodge as a nice splurge.
The interesting thing was how much of the WT, IMO, is not so great and I have no interest in repeating. Like the whole North side, and much of the buggy, mostly viewless West side. Having said that, we've gone back twice to hike the 18 miles from Box Canyon to White River (East side), which is super cool and reaches the highest point of the WT at Panhandle Gap. That, and the spectacular North side are worth doing again, but IMO that's about it. YMMV.
I would also add that we passed a number of tired, overburdened backpackers who said they were not having a good time spending 9 or 10 days mostly swating bugs. They saw the size of our day packs and said "that's the way to do it".