Williams Peak

With my plans for Saturday cancelled I was desperate to look for a fun hike to do and started asking everyone if they wanted to hike with me. Red pointed out that there’s a trip being organized by idealistic74 for Williams Ridge. Then Paul sent me an email telling me of the same trip. I looked up the stats for Williams Peak it and it looked perfect.

The next day I met the group at Brentwood mall and we split up into two cars: Shawn’s and mine. The drive to the trailhead was uneventful although there was a slight confusion in the 103 hikes book as it says to turn left on Chilliwack Lake road after the bridge on Vedder road rather than before it…

We met up at the trailhead with the rest of the group and started hiking up at 9:10am. After a quick stop for a group photo we got onto the trail. The trail was really steep. Like the grind but without the stairs. Just the way I like it. Paul quickly took the lead and disappeared far ahead into the trees. I was behind him with Steve and the rest of the group was somewhere behind us. The hike to the ridge turned out to be easier than expected and we me made it up shortly. On the ridge we met up with Paul who was waiting for us and Steve, Paul and I continued onwards at a rapid pace. The trail was covered with blueberries and as my stomach was starting to complain it is hungry, I couldn’t help to stop and munch on a few. The ridge was still in the trees but occasionally there was a break and we could see some of the mountains to the south. The trail all the way to the end of the ridge was pretty well maintained although the bush is starting to reclaim its land a bit. It was easy to follow and nearly impossible to lose it.

After another hour or two and lots of ups and downs we reached the end of the trail where we stopped for a snack and took in the views of Williams peak. We were finally out of the trees and we could see where the ramp (described in Matt Gunn’s book) was. At this point Alan managed to catch up to us and seemed happy he would be able to join us on the peak. There was no sign of the rest of the group so we continued towards the peak.

There was a bit of confusion here as we weren’t sure which path to take to get to the boulder field.

There was a trail that has seen some usage so we decided to follow it. After another 100 or 200 meters of ascent we discovered we were on the knoll, when the route was describing the approach to be at the base of the knoll. We got down to a path that separates the two peaks of the knoll and Paul went down into the trees to see if he can find a way down from there. I went up the second peak of the knoll to scout for the same thing. I looked around and thought I could see an easy path going down so I went back and told the others. Paul had said he found a route too so they decided to follow him and told me to meet them at the boulder field so that I was already up there. I tried to follow the route I saw but it turned out to end at the edge of a cliff and I could not find any other way down. So back I went and returned to where the other guys went down. I followed their tracks through the bush and got down quickly. Eventually I saw Paul and joined them on the bushwack out of that valley. Paul managed to find an easy way out and we were finally on the boulder field. Over an hour wasted being lost and too much elevation gained and lost but we were back on track.

The boulder field was a bit of a pain to traverse. It was made up of large granite boulders and my poles were quickly starting to get in the way so I retracted them and put them on my pack. We traversed the boulders pretty quickly and managed to reach the base of the ramp. The heat was a bit unbearable here. The granite seemed to radiate heat.

We went up the ramp. It was steep with plenty of loose rocks all over the place.

I was getting paranoid about getting hit with a rock from someone ahead of me or of letting loose some rocks on to those behind me. We tried as best we could to stay on different lines up it, whenever we could. We quickly got past the first part of the ramp and then turned left and went up another loose, steeper section. Paul got ahead quite a bit, with Alan close behind and then me and finally Steve. As I was ascending I suddenly hear: “ROCK” and I saw a rock the size of my head flying straight towards me at high speeds. I jumped to the side as it crossed the spot where I was a second before…it also barley missed Steve. I was kicking myself for forgetting my helmet at home. I would have felt a lot more comfortable with some sort of protection for my head.

We continued onwards and reached the final steep section of the ramp. I got a little nervous here and looked for an alternative after trying to go up. The other side wasn’t any easier so I went back and followed the path Paul took. It turned out to be a lot easier than I expected and had no problems ascending. I didn’t even have to use my hands as there were stairs made up of vegetation. Up on the top of the ramp we took a short break, admiring the views, eating some snacks and looking towards the gully we had to ascend.

We then traversed onto the gully, left some Cairns behind and started ascending towards the peak. The ascent turned out to be non technical and simpler than the ramp but by then I was really getting tired. I had already ascended about 1600m of elevation (because of that knoll) and had another 200m to go (or so I estimated).

The heat, the steepness of the trail and the slightly thinner air wasn’t helping either and I was repeatedly taking 10 steps and stopping to catch my breath. Steve seemed to be having the same problems but Alan and Paul were ascending quite quickly. Occasionally I would use the nice granite rocks to go up (simple class 3) just because it was easier and more fun than going up the steep vegetation but it wasn’t really necessary, the gully was quite doable.

After some time I saw Paul at the top shouting happily that that was it, that we made it. We had reached the peak at 3:00pm and took some moments to admire the 360-degree views. The odd thing about the place was that it was infested with bugs. The summit Cairn had hundreds of flying ants walking on it and flying around it. I went closer to the summit cairn for a victory photo but was quickly covered by the flying ants so I ran away before the shot could be taken. We took about half an hour for rest, snacks, drinks, naps (well, only Paul did) and photos.

The descent was quite easy and we quickly got back to the ramp. Going down the ramp wasn’t too tough either and we took more precautions with the falling rocks this time. As we were descending the final leg of the ramp we could see far in the distance, right before the knoll that the rest of our group was there. I noticed they started to go down by the time we reached the bottom of the ramp.

The way back was unknown to us because we took an alternate route so we had to figure out how to return. We decided to stick as high as it was comfortable on the boulder field and cross under the knoll this time. We got past the boulder field and reached the same spot we came out of the trees before and that’s when Alan noticed some flagging tape. We were pretty happy about this great fortune as the path past that point seemed very steep and difficult. We followed the flagging tape through the trees and came back out onto another section of boulders and after a few minutes we were back on the ridge.

This was the most direct route we could have taken and were pissed off for not finding it on the way up. Had there been a flagging tape on the one tree at the start of the section it would have made our life a lot easier. For those going there after us, the trail is to the right of the tree on the right in the photo named “21 - Back on the ridge past the boulder zone” in my Williams Peak album. Going up the trail, that photo was taken after the small peak after the small rock bridge before the big boulder at the end of Williams ridge before the big knoll.

Back on the ridge on the easy trail I set off at a rapid pack down towards the car stopping only for the occasional drink, some blueberries or to get rocks out of my shoes. Alan and I were going at a near running pace and we overtook the rest of the group on the way down and made it to the car at 6:00pm (for a total of about 9 hours). We waited another half an hour and then fifteen more minutes for the entire group to arrive. Later we went for drinks, food and some socializing at a pub in Chilliwack before going home.

It was a very fun hike with great company. Thanks to idealistic74 for organizing this and for everyone for being great company.