Clinton prepares for Mt. Williamson climb

It’s been almost 2 years to the day since my last climb in the Sierra (Mt. Whiteney – June 11th, 2007).  In the two years since I’ve been itching to get back up there to do something a little more off the beaten path, but most of the good climbs required permits and proper timing.  Such is the case with this little gem, as it lies within the boundaries of the The Bighorn Sheep Zoological Preserve and  is closed for much of the year.

According to SummitPost.org:

“The Bighorn Sheep Zoological Preserve encompasses an area bordering the east face of Mount Tyndall and stretches east about 4 miles.This area is only open from December 15 to July 15. This means that Shepherd Pass can be used to access Williamson for only half of the year. The entire south face of Williamson has its own restrictions. It is only open only two months of the year: December 15 – January 1 and April 15 – May 15.

A good blanket statement that summarizes the overall closure conditions is that if you want to summit Mt. Williamson, it needs to be between December 15th and July 15th (i.e. the whole mountain around the summit is closed from 7.16 12.14)”

Now that the permits have been secured, we are finally ready to get up the second highest peak in the Sierra!!  Compared to Whitney’s Mountaineering Route this isn’t going to be any more difficult (or so I’ve heard).  The real challenge is in the length and elevation gain of the approach.  More from www.SummitPost.org:

“It is important to note that hiking the trail to Shepherd Pass (12,040 ft) is not a casual outing! The trailhead is only at 6,299 ft! In addition, the people who built the trail must have been on crack because parts of it have switchbacks that gain about 3 ft in 100 yds, and at one point it descends almost 1000 ft when it should be going up!”

As you can see, the real beauty of this climb lies in the route itself.  While there are many approaches to the mountain, the common route (the NW Route) is by far the easiest and so it will be our path for this trip.  More from www.SummitPost.org:

“The climb itself is not overly difficult, but getting to the base of the climb is a different matter altogether. The most common approach involves an 11 mile hike to 12,040’ Shepherd Pass, followed by an arduous traverse of the glacially carved Williamson Bowl. The Williamson Bowl area may look fairly flat on your topo, but it has lots of small ups and downs. You have to weave around lakes and climb up and over many large boulder-strewn hills just to get to the base of the route.”

Stay tuned as I’ll be making Twitter updates from stopping points on the path and in doing so will be posting blog entries and sending out emails to those of you that are subscribed to the blog (you’ll get separate messages from Twitter based on your preferences there).

Tags: mt. whitney, Twitter, williamson

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