Evening Run

Afternoon Run

First

Quick pit stop

I’ve wanted to come back and give this a try for a while, because I think with the right conditions skiing north fork bairs creek is possibly the fastest way to get up and down Williamson. There also aren’t many mountains in the world that offer ~7500’ of moderate, fall line skinning and skiing. Mt. Whitney may be 120 feet taller, but Willy is a whole lot bigger. 

The standard running route via shepherds pass is about 28 miles, 9500’ gain. This is about the same vert, but much less distance at 13ish miles. Both have their pros and cons (many miles of trail vs 2ish miles of bushwacking, much more shit to carry with skis vs running, fast ascent with running vs fast descent with skis, more transitions with skis, etc), so it’s not really reasonable to try to equate them.

While this was technically about 16 min faster than the current shepherds pass FKT, that FKT included Tyndall and a good amount more vert, so I’m definitely not going to claim some all out FKT here. I’d just like to show off that this is a fast, fun, and different way to the summit. 

Notes on today:
- this would’ve been much faster last year, maybe 30-45 min? There was so much more snow, which would’ve meant more time on skis and fewer ski removals to walk across rocks/bushes (about 5 of those today)
- used my “skimo-plus” setup which was definitely the move for the required 7k of skinning and carrying through the bushes. A little slow on the descent when I got into survival skiing isothermal snow below 9k
- tried a double backpack combo - 40l bag for the bushwack (ski boots inside), and running vest for the skiing. A single 25l pack would’ve been better, I wasted a bunch of time transitioning between the two packs
- still need to find a better way to cross the notch. I went with the tried and true northerly traverse, with a few easy rock moves and some heinous snow traversing (waist deep postholing today). There has to be a faster and safer route
- still managed to make like 10 costly wrong turns on the bushwack, despite being here last week. Probably 15 min lost.
- 13-14.4k wrecked me, just like last year
- I spent about 10 minutes on the summit, but kinda felt like an idiot for not lounging up there for an hour. Not many places in the world match the beauty of the Sierra crest in the spring. 
- I do think someone who’s more fit than me, with a real skimo setup, a better snowpack, and dialed bushwacking could shave a good 90+ minutes off this time. It’d be sick to see that happen.

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Kyle J

Silly Willy TT

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Evening Run

Afternoon Run

First

Quick pit stop

Afternoon Run

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