After waiting for grad school to come around for a while, I decided it would be nice to take a little solo trip. Following a quick pondering of places to go, I determined the High Sierra could provide everything I wanted: beautiful scenery, light crowds, not too much snow, and endless scrambling in an alpine environment.

I bought trekking poles and approach shoes dreaming of long days scrambling with more elevation than I could handle, then haphazardly packed my car and was off. For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to really test myself the first couple days, see how much I could handle this trip. I set my sights on the long twisting rib (north arete) of Mt. Williamson, the second highest peak in California at 14,380 feet. The long twisting rib goes at about 5.4 (mostly 3rd and 4th class though), climbing around 3,000 feet from the base of the climb to the summit. It is also guarded by a burly 14 mile approach with 7,000 feet of elevation gain. The fortunate part about that fact is you will most likely get the place to yourself. I was the only one to summit Williamson the day I did, and saw only two people the first day (both on Shepard Pass trail), and one party from a distance on the second.

After driving the 15 hours from Bozeman, MT to Independence, CA on the 19th, I attempted to drive to Shepard’s Pass trailhead in my little Impreza. I heard that it could be a little hard to get to in a low clearance car. After about 10 minutes of bottoming out and getting out of my car to questioning the next section of road, I gave in and decided an extra mile and a half of hiking from the lower trailhead would be better than ruining my car.

Just as I was about to head out the next morning, someone drove by and stopped. Turns out, he was going for Tyndall, another 14er right next to Williamson, and gave me a ride to the trailhead (thanks Brian). The first day was relatively uneventful and pleasant. The trail is long with an annoying downhill section, but the first views of the long twisting rib after about 4 miles at the Symmes Creek saddle were stunning.

After another 3 miles, I reached the base of Shepard’s Pass. Along with this was some snow, and I got off trail a little bit (assumed it just went over the talus field… it goes around). During the brief quarter mile in the talus, I managed to drop my water bottle for the first time all day, and it fell deep into talus. Uh oh, I kind of needed that. Took me fifteen minutes, but by using my ice axe in all sorts of ways, I managed to move some big rocks and get it out, phew.

Now for Shepard’s pass. I found a relatively easy line up snow for 100 feet or so, then up some scree, and finally a little more snow to the top of the pass. Not too bad, and never had to pull out the axe or micro spikes.

I set up camp at a very scenic campsite at the upper saddle of Shepard’s pass. There was a small stream that seemed to be the least frozen water at Shepard’s pass.

After a poor attempt at an alpine start, I got some coffee and oatmeal in me and set off around 8:30. I had the general plan of getting down into Williamson Bowl somehow, then getting down the drainage to 11,000 feet, and contouring to the base of the north arete. Willy bowl has two levels, and I wanted to drop directly into the lower, east bowl. After poking around some chutes, I found a fourth-class chute with limited snow and downclimbed to the lower bowl. It seemed to be the furthest west chute that dropped to the lower bowl.

Once in the bowl, I followed the creek to the base of the steeper section into the drainage. Getting down was easy: I walked on slabs, eventually rock hopping, then a little scree skiing down into a beautiful little spot.

I cut right, sticking to that 11,000-foot line slightly above the lakes. Mostly walking with some easy scrambling through this. I had a topographic map on my phone with my location and found it easiest to figure out where the route was through this. The north face is quite a maze from below, but obvious with topo lines on a map. After identifying what I though was the correct ridge (left or east side of the two ridges that meet below the west horn), I found a very reasonable way up to it and was on my way.

After a bit of fourth or easy fifth, there was a long (1,000ish feet) of second or third class.

Just before the two prominent ridges meet, the ridge somewhat splits. I decided the ridgetop choss didn’t look too fun, so dropped down between them and enjoyed some fourth-class friction-y stuff.

This leads to the base of what you may think is the west horn. However, there is many false summits, and it just keeps going. This is where the climbing breaks into fifth class, and it is all quite enjoyable. There are plenty of opportunities to make it harder or easier.

Eventually, I reached the summit of the west horn and descended off the northwest side. It was a little spooky, but the climbing is all easy if you find the right route.

I found a notch and crossed over to the south side of the ridge off the west horn.

The remain bit to the summit plateau was fun. Then it is a simple walk across, then up rocks to the summit. Ah the summit. The climbing was fun, but there’s nothing like being on top of it all.

Finding the west chute was easy with the AllTrails map of it. A quick chimney downclimb, then thousands of feet of scree.

There was a little snow, but not enough to warrant pulling out my spikes or axe. I found it easiest to pretty much just slide down on my shoes, so it went quick and fun. I had done that on snow before, but had never been in a scree gully like that. Another cool first to check off from this trip.

I slogged through Willy bowl, aiming straight at the saddle where I knew camp awaited. On this walk, I pondered the thought of trying Tyndall now. It was about 5, and I figured it would take another half hour to get out of the bowl. With 3 hours until sunset, the intrusive thought of another 14er sounded too sweet to pass up. I filled my sole liter Nalgene I brought for the day with some lovely water running over rocks in the bowl and tried to psyche myself up.

After cresting the saddle, I saw another group setting up camp. I took a 15-minute break which took me to about 5:45, then set out. I think they were staring at me thinking “what kind of idiot starts that with 2 hours until sunset.”

I ascended the prominent north rib, which turned out to be a stellar third-class route with almost no choss or rock hoping. After an hour, I was on the summit. Lovely: plenty of time, beautiful views, feeling great, life was good. Until I bonked. I like to think I’m good at fueling and knowing my limits enough to avoid this stuff, but oh well. The decent was borderline hell. I went down the northeast ridge which was endless rock hoping. On big loose rocks too. Not the nice small ones that don’t move. I bonked about halfway through, and with shaky knees and a tired body, I moved painfully slow down each rock, and up the next. I eventually got to camp just before nine. It was pretty dark, but I was too stubborn to take out the headlamp I had brought for the day.

All in all, I was very happy. My first two 14ers, endless fun climbing, and that nice feeling of being so tired at the end of the day: happy to be done but mostly ecstatic you did it. I was too tired or lazy to fire up my stove, so pounded some trail mix and fell asleep.

The next day I felt great and made quick work of the walk out with The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin playing my headphones and a strong desire to take a dip and eat an ice cream. On walkouts after a hard day, I often think of the pleasures I’ll enjoy when I’m out. This time, the Eastern Sierra Ice Cream Company was the worthiest stop. A place I would recommend to anyone passing through Independence.

For doing this basically off-the-couch I was extremely happy. Not only were the views everything I dreamed of and more, but I felt pretty good about my fitness and was looking forward to a fun trip ahead. It was by far the longest chunk of climbing/scrambling I had ever done, and I loved every second of the long twisting rib. The only place I went wrong was not preparing for the heat. It was brutally hot (some of the hottest weather I had ever been in… mid 90s in Independence and not much cooler anywhere below 12,000 feet), and I was sweating bullets in my running shorts and t-shirt. A sun hoody would have been a good idea.

I would highly recommend this to anyone. The remote feel of it all makes the breathtaking views even better. One of the loveliest places I have ever been, and a little trip I will always cherish.