Mount Willey Climbing notes shared by Mountain-Forecast users

  • December 30, 2014
    Kit Clark from United States

    14 Dec 2014
    We went in on the southern end of the Willey Range trail as we had previously done Tom and Field from the Avalon AZ trail earlier.
    The access road to the Ethan Pond Trail was closed but was an easy 0.3 mile trek with snowshoes to the trail head. The trail started out with reasonable elevation gain, although the trail was not very well traveled. Several trees had fallen across the trail from previous snow and ice conditions.
    The first 1.6 miles although poor trail conditions was not too bad. Once reaching the sign that says 1.1 miles to the summit, that all changes. It is very steep and difficult from that point on with very challenging rock climbs. The ladders were actually not too bad, it was just the continued very steep and poor trail conditions. In hind sight we would have gone back up Avalon and AZ trail to do this. Good luck