The original goal of the day was start from the Kilpacker trailhead and go up el diente then traverse to mt Wilson, drop off the north side into Navajo basin and up Wilson peak. I slept in my car at the trailhead which I was happy I chose to do as it was poring rain all night. I ended up sleeping too good slept in which made me have the nice and early 9:00 start time. I decided to go for it anyway even with lots of fresh snow and an extremely late start. It was all smooth and fast up el diente. The snow was at most 3-4 inches so it was slightly slicker but not terrible. It was however enough to scare me from not doing the traverse. I ended up going down and up mt Wilson’s south route and summited that by 1.

Now heading off the north side of Mount Wilson is where things really got sketchy, the few class 4 moves on the ridge off were made extemely scary cause I was fully trusting fresh snow that had no support over at least a little bit of exposure. Getting off the first 1000 ft of vert of the north side was so slow going and quite scary. I did a good 20 14ers last winter but all were in much more consolidated snow. Luckily it was all just fine with only a few minor slips. The only problem was it was 5 o clock by the time I hit the turn for Wilson peak I was very torn on doing it and finishing in the dark or heading back to the car. I didn’t bring a headlamp and the next day I was doing all of the Chicago basin 14ers so I figured I’ll call it and head back. I also really wanted to ski the coors line off Wilson peak in spring so I called it. I ended up making good time on the way back and doing 9 miles in 2.5 hours for a finish time around 7:20 I believe.

key notes, no more north route of Mount Wilson until snow is more stable and consolidated. Also I apologize, I suck at writing trip reports.