ON July 23, I met with Vinh and Hieu to head up to Williamson Rock. I just met Vinh online when I was looking for new partners. He brought his friend Hieu. Neither of them had ever been to Williamson, infact Hieu had never been climbing outside before. He did good for his first time out. Hopefully he will keep wanting to go.

Above is a picture of Williamson Rock form the parking area. To give you a rough estimate of the size, if you were to climb from the valley floor to the top, it would be atleast 5 full pitches. Williamson is, however, divided into different levels. We went to the lower part of the valley known as Stream Wall. It was about 80 degrees and Sunny. We were in the Sun all day. Williamson is a nice place to go when it is to hot elsewhere. I think Apple Valley and Josh were well over 100 that day.

As several people do, we started on a 5.8 named Quickie. This is the furthest climb to the left on Stream wall. From there we just went right, but we skipped Rock-it since another group was on it.

Here is a picture of Hieu on Quickie:

Here is Vinh on the other end:

Vinh led this but I didn't get any pictures (I was belaying him).

Then we went on to Butterfinger, 5.8. I led this and Hieu snapped a picture:

Vinh and I each screamed up this route twice. Hieu also got up it.

Next we were on to Scream Dream, 5.10a. Vihn scouted this out in the car on the way up. He led it without to much worry. I wish I would have gotten a picture. This route is pretty easy except for the last 5 feet where it is really thin and you have to get the sequence just right. I TRed it and then we packed it up.

On the way out we stopped at Mushroom Boulder to do Mushroom, the pumpiest 5.8 you will ever do. I led the first three bolts and got too pumped to finish. Vihn then took over and got up it. Hieu gave it a try in between.

Hopefully we can all go back soon since they have seen so little of what Williamson has to offer.