Williams Traverse
The Billy Traverse aka Traversing the Willys
Date: 8/24/22
Partner: Kristi Henes
Trailhead: Lost Man TH
Summits:
- Williams South C
- Williams South A
- Williams South B
- Williams Mountain
- Williams North
Distance: 14.8m
Elevation Gain: 6000ft
Duration: 12.5hrs
GPX
A fun Sawatch scramble that felt more physical than the miles and vertical might suggest. The day included plenty of route finding and scrambling(mostly class 3 or easier with a few shorter sections of class 4). If you get off route you could find yourself in low 5. The most intimidating part of the day for me was ascending the last 600ft after dropping Williams' North... hahaha!
Williams South C 14ers.com Page
Williams South A 14ers.com Page
Williams South B 14ers.com Page
Williams Mountain 14ers.com Page
Williams North 14ers.com Page
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14.8m - 6000ft - 12.5hrs
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The sky was spectacular as we logged some pre-dawn trail miles
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After summiting Williams South C we headed north to Williams South A
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Looking back to South A (summit is on the left)
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Bumps between South C and South A (mostly class 2 and 2+)
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Looking back to South C
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A spicy little number to the east
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Looking ahead to South B, Williams and North. The bump on the right is a sub summit of South B
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Looking south to Grizzly(L) and company
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Heading up the final pitch to South A
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L2R: North, Williams, South B
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L2R: North, Williams, South B
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L2R: North, Williams, South B
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Looking back to South A. Descending this cliffy section took some trial and error route finding. We found a route with one short class 4 maneuver.
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Descending the bump just before South B
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South B had some easy 3 scrambling to the summit
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The blocky granite on South B reminded me a lot of Jagged or Sunlight
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Kristi summits South B. Williams behind
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Descending South B
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Looking back to South B from below the first tower
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Key Photo! There is a crack against the far wall with chock stones in it. We climbed the crack one to the left of that. Class 4
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The crack we climbed
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Just above the crack
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We traversed up and around South B. However it was apparent Williams' south ridge would not go direct
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We dropped from just above the saddle
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The start of Williams' south ridge
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We contoured as high as we could
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After ascending an open gully we though we were about done until we saw this. Williams' summit block.
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There was more class 4ish scrambling to the summit
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Kristi summits Williams
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Williams' north ridge. Our plan of staying the ridge and dropping left as needed kept things at class 3.
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At the bottom of the ridge we contoured right around the towers
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Looking back to Williams and our contour route to Williams North's south ridge
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The south ridge of Williams north
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Looking back to Williams
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The final walk up to Williams North
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We were honored to sign the summit register from 1990
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After descending an eastern gully, we climbed 600ft to the saddle front and center
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Looking back to Williams
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The last 600ft of vertical felt intimidating from here but it wasn't too bad
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Looking back to Williams North from the saddle
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From the saddle we traversed meadows back to the Lost Man Loop trail. PT13001 from the west
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Lost Man Res... just over a half mile more and we were back at the TH
