We didn’t rise too early, tired from our long drive, but eventually the morning heat woke us and we packed up and headed up the Shepherd Pass Trail. Despite its reputation, the Shepherd Pass Trail has some redeeming qualities. It’s very beautiful, climbing from the desert sagebrush through pine forests, along a creek to Anvil Camp, and finally easily passing through a boulder field en route to Shepherd Pass. There are some online who complain of the difficulty of this climb, which is made worse by a 500’ descent about halfway up, and that’s fair, but it’s a high bar to ask all of these eastside trails to provide the beauty and easy access of Onion Valley or Bishop Pass.

Unlike Mount Whitney, Mount Williamson stands quite prominently over the Owens Valley. Its location, jutting off the Sierra Crest makes it appear more significant than Whitney.

We toiled up the climb towards Shepherd Pass all day, eventually reaching the pass in mid afternoon. We were treated to awesome views of Mount Tyndall. We figured we would tackle Williamson first, the next day, and decided to drop to one of the lakes in the Williamson Bowl, hoping we could find a flat space to sleep in the talus.

As soon as we crossed the divide into the Williamson Bowl, we encountered the notorious talus. The descent to lake 3713 was slow going, but we made it and found a good place to camp at the southeast corner of the lake.

The east face of Mount Tyndall has some long, technical rock climbs.

Mount Versteeg from our campsite.

Sunset behind Mount Tyndall.