July 2002

Scotty and I drove down to Independence, and then to the Shepherd Pass Trailhead, where we spent the night. We were up by 4:10 and on the road by 4:52. We walked back down the road for a ways, and then cut across the sagebrush to Shepherd Creek, arriving at 5:15. We started up the Northeast Ridge, beginning at about 6,100'. By 6 am, we had gained 1,400' of the ridge, and by 7 we were at 9,120'. The first 2,000' or so were sand and brush, and after that we gained the ridge proper, which was mostly rock, but was guarded by thick Mountain Mahogany. The Mahogany made the trek unpleasant at times, and we trudged in and out through it for quite a while. Just above the 9,000' level, we first started to encounter difficult rock along the ridge. This slowed our progress considerably, and at 8 am we were only at 9,800'. The ridge was narrow and exposed, and some of the blocks we were clambering over had some moves that were undoubtedly 5th class, but overall there was more 4th class. By 9 am we were at 10,440', and moving slowly along the techical ridgeline. There were many little peaklets along the ridge that we had to negotiate one by one, and our progress was slow, but not for lack of effort. At 10 am we were actually lower (10,300') than at 9. The route finding was tedious, often requiring many attempts at different elevations to cross each obstacle. We left the ridge at 11,200' and scrambled up a talus gully to rejoin the ridge further up when it became our only option. At 1 pm, we were at 12,080' and back on the difficult, time-consuming ridge. At 2 pm, we made it to the bottom of the triangular-shaped talus slope leading to the East Horn. We had each brought 100 oz of water in our hydration packs, but it wasn't nearly enough, and we ran out at about 11,000'. We found a seep, but it wasn't enough to refill, so we carried on. The dehydration really caught up to us climbing the slope to the top of the East Horn, we were moving very slowly, Scotty seemingly less affected. We summited the East Horn at 3:15, and didn't linger. We dropped into the notch between the 2 horns and found difficult, insecure climbing to gain the notch. In the notch there was still some snow left, and we ate on this for about 15 minutes, and filled our hydration packs in the hope that it would melt. The climb to the top of the West Horn was straightforward and not too difficult, and we arrived at 4:15. During our climb to this point, we passed many abandoned rappel slings, and some gear, all testament to the difficulties encountered along this route.We carried no climbing gear or rope, soloing (can 2 people solo?) all of the difficulties enroute. We continued toward Williamson, dropping into yet another notch, traversed over and gained the Williamson plateau. We quickly crossed this and headed up the east slope and topped out at 5:30. We signed in, took photos, and took off for our descent. We found the notch of the tourist route up the West Face, and dropped in here, descending the long talus-filled chute to the the Williamson Basin. We entered the basin at 7 pm, found our first source of real, running water, tanked up, and headed for Shepherd Pass. We started out of the basin at 7:30, and arrived at the pass at 8:20. We hiked the first and most difficult mile in the fading daylight, and soon were relegated to lightless travel on a trail neither of us had ever traveled. We did not bring headlamps because we had often traveled distances of this magnitude in much less time, and we expected no different here. We sadly underestimated the difficulty of the ridge. The trail was relatively easy to follow, and we made decent time, arriving at the trailhead at 12:44 am. Mt. Williamson is a large mountain. We were on the go for nearly 20 hours straight, traveled 26-27 miles, and gained/descended 11,300'. We hopped in the car, glad we parked it there instead of at Shepherd Creek, and lit out for home. I had to stop 3 times on the way back for short naps as I kept falling asleep at the wheel, but we eventually made it home. For Scotty's take on this peak, click here.