at what point do you call it 1 long day vs camp

on routes with a substantial approach where do you draw the line between calling it a long day car to car versus breaking it into multiple days? 5 miles in? 8? 10? or is it based on time? 2 hours? 4? I understand that it also depends a lot on the route. i'm more willing to make it a longer day with more walking if the route i'm doing is easier and i know i'll be able to move fast through portions of it. obviously if you're going to hike in to an area and try to do multiple routes over the course of a couple days, your decision is already made for you

just curious what goes into your decision making process when planning a trip.

I hate to carry camping gear weight. unless the route or the mission requires it, I try to never camp. My longest days have been up to 30+ miles with close to 2000' of climbing up to 5.11. I say if you don't have anything holding you back (work, girl friend, boy friend, boat shuttles, etc. ) just go for it. The worst that happens, you sleep in all your layers completely exhausted, wake up at first light and get out.

As I get older, the allowed miles get shorter. Still, last summer, three of us did 6 miles in, 15 pitches, ~1000 feet of scrambling, 7+ miles out and were bathing in Tanaya Lake with sunset colors on the hills. We didn't expect that.

So much of being able to do that depended on that particular party. It was an alignment of the planets. And the objective had to be a good one ... and it was for each of us..

To answer your question, for me the max is if I believe I can "easily" finish the technical stuff before dark. And that might include getting up a few hours before light. And if close to that "by dark", it's not just any partner that will do.

And I can see a day not too far off where "technical done by dark" becomes "back to camp by dark"

:-)

And on another climb with very similar miles/pitches stats, we took 4 days. About half of that time was from the overhead of deciding to camp and the other half was time needed to acclimate to altitude.

Carrying the extra weight is no fun, but camping in the mountains is a lot of fun. Really depends to me on the experience I want and the time I have. I've camped for climbs under 3 miles and have car to cared for climbs over 10 each way, both were great, where you burn yourself is pushing that limit of car to car with no sleeping bag or extra layer, buy a lightweight bag or bring a puffy just in case, don;t need the tent and cooking supplies and can share one bag between two people, no food is one thing freezing is another.

Also depends on time constraints, the availability of good camping and freah water, and what kind of gear you have.

Many people do routes on the Incredible Hulk without camping. Long day car to car but it's possible. However, is is a beautiful place to bivy, we knew it mght be our only visit, and the weather was clear and consistent. There was also fresh water running at the wall and our bivy gear is about as light as it gets.

I'm glad we slept there that night. Meant we werre able to go down to Tuolomne the next morning and get climbing that afternoon. I don't even think we took a rest day between the Hulk and the Third Pillar, which is a long car to car route. If we had tried to do the Hulk car to car, it would have meant resting a day before the Third Pillar anyway, so it wouldn't have saved us any time.