7/6/2024 Route: Clockwise Billy Traverse from Lost Man TH Posted On: 7/7/2024, By: tefensmom Info: Mostly summer conditions on the route except for the standard descent route. The SE gully of Williams North was still holding a lot of snow. We didnt have axes so we troubleshooted. We headed back down the ridge toward Williams and descended toward the East from a saddle low point. The normal pass people ascend/descend to get back to the Lost Man Loop Trail was also holding too much snow for the time of day so we ascended to a dry section of ridge and dropped steep grass to get down to the Lost Man Loop Trail. Attaching a map of our descent route. It went class 3. Had perfect weather. Did cross a lot of low angle supportive snow with sun cups in the northern basin. |
|
7/15/2023 Route: Billy Traverse Posted On: 7/17/2023, By: astranko Info: Traverse is in pretty good shape. No snow to contend with during the main traverse. Big snowfield blocking the standard descent gully off of the northernmost peak. Went down the SE face and it is easy and grassy and goes easily. I'm surprised it isn't the standard descent compared to the sand and garbage of the gully. Trail home is in great shape and the wildflowers are poppin. I'd only get at this if you feel comfortable navigating 4th and low 5th terrain without much beta. It all went, but if you asked me in retrospect "how did you get around X or Y" I wouldn't be able to tell you. It's a maze of gendarmes and notches and gullies. |
|
10/22/2022 Route: Billy traverse Posted On: 10/22/2022, By: yaktoleft13 Info: Did the full Billy today. Report is good for all of about 5 hours, but snow only affected the route for about 30 feet on grassy ledges downclimbing Williams south b and about 200 feet on easy 3rd terrain downclimbing Williams to Williams north. long day, lots of gain, awesome mountains. Oddly enough, someone left a summit register in a nalgene on a false summit of Williams south and people have been signing it....oops |
|
9/18/2022 Route: Billy Traverse Posted On: 9/19/2022, By: supranihilest Info: TL;DR: route is in summer conditions, recent snows did not hit the Independence Pass area. Williams South C: Lost Man trail to Midway trail. Class 2. Williams South C to Williams South A: Our troupe was under the impression the entire way from South C to South A was Class 2. Not so. There's a significant amount of Class 2+ and Class 3 between the two peaks. Exposure is high in some places. Williams South A to Williams South B: Initially Class 2 to a jumble of large towers, cliffs, and slabs. At one point we traversed a one foot wide ledge over huge exposure on the west side of the ridge, then climbed Class 3 slabs back to the east before down climbing about 100 feet of Class 3 to avoid a giant Class 5 cliff. When difficulty of the cliff relented to Class 4 we down climbed and crossed. This was the most uncomfortable single move on the route for me, it was reachy and I got a spot from the great Mountain Chicken. After that Class 3 up to the first pointy false summit, then Class 3 to the true summit on excellent, exposed rock. Williams South B to Big Willy: Unfortunately Big Willy is mostly gully climbing. To get down off South B we down climbed Class 3 blocks and ledges southeast past a large cliff, then northeast to an extremely steep grass slope. This is the slope in Ben Conner's trip report that he marked with red dots. We called this slope "Class 4 grass". It's incredibly steep and the exposure is probably the highest of any part of the route. We took it very slowly as a fall has the potential to be unstoppable and thus fatal. All told we zig-zagged down probably 1,000 feet of grass, slabs, and rocky corners before reaching the boulder field between South B and Big Willy. At times it was five points of contact. Not my favorite, personally. From there we traversed under massive granite walls to a very obvious gully (which is steep and very loose, don't kick rocks onto your partners) leading up Big Willy which we took to a split, taking the right fork which leads to a false summit. From the false summit the true summit spikes up impressively, looking half impossible. The key is a narrow ridge leading up the right side of the summit's vertical south face, which becomes more apparent the closer you get. We scrambled up the ridge at Class 3 with once again massive exposure into a tiny squeeze chimney and then a move or two of Class 4 up a boulder jumble to the summit. Exacting finish that makes the craptastic gully worth it. Big Willy to Willy North: Scramble down the obvious ridge to the northwest at Class 3 or Class 4, or descend a steep, slabby gully at Class 3 and traverse back to the ridge when the vertical walls on the ridge relent. The rest of the ridge is Class 3 to the saddle. We then traversed on steep, kitty litter slopes on the east side of the ridge under lots of towers from the saddle to where things opened up and the remaining route to the summit turns to Class 2. To descend we took the first, large gully down off the south ridge, which is currently topped by a large cornice remnant. This gully sucks but what do you expect, it's a gully, it's steep and it's loose, you know the game. From the bottom of the gully we crossed to the obvious easy saddle in Big Willy's east ridge, and climbed that gully to the ridge. We traversed high for a long while through willows and marshy stuff basically straight south until we intercepted the Lost Man trail which we took back to the trailhead. A classic route with oodles of fun, stout scrambling. Well worth the very high effort to do all five of these peaks at once. |
|
8/29/2022 Route: Williams Traverse from Lost Man TH Posted On: 8/30/2022, By: JasonKline Info: Summer conditions. No snow or ice. |
|
6/7/2020 Route: Chromosome Couloir Posted On: 6/7/2020, By: KJMc Info: Left branch is in good condition with a little sun-cupping. The entire couloir stays shaded for about 1.5-2hrs after sunrise (early June), but the lower section stays shaded even longer from it's steep walls (past 9:30am). You can still navigate around the rocks on the upper panel but it's steep and easy to forget about the exposure below. Really great consolidated snow for climbing, but challenging to ski. You do not want to fall above the dogleg. An easier way to do this trip would be to leave a car at Lost Man TH and then drive up to the last hairpin and climb over any of the Geissler passes. This can be a fast approach as long as there is enough snow in the basins below. If taking Lost Man Pass, stay to the right of the creek so that you won't have to cross it later. After your climb on Williams HP, descend the 3.5 miles to your car at Lost Man TH. Or if you have the energy, time and snow conditions are right, climb back up any of the Geisslers and get a bonus 1,500' of snow to slide down. (I finished up on W Geissler at noon on a partly cloudy day and had soft and fun snow to finish up a long day) Photo 1: Scout day from W Geissler Photo 2: View from Lost Man Pass at 5:30am sunrise Photo 3: Approaching base of couloir near Sioux Lake Photo 4: View towards Geisslers from top of Chromosome Couloir Photo 5: Map Photo 6: View back towards Williams HP on return over W Geissler |
