Summitted both El Diente and Mount Wilson on 6/22 via Kilpacker Trailhead.

Parked at Kilpacker Trailhead around 6:30. Beautiful approach, be sure to take some time to get pictures of the waterfall in Kilpacker basin on your way up. Trail kinda sucks once you get out of tree line. It’s all loose rock varying in size. We completely missed the turnoff for the Diente summit somewhere along all the rock and had to turn around adding some extra time to our route. Once you begin the ascent to gain the ridge it gets pretty fun, the rock turns from loose to pretty solid. Once you gain the ridge the right side or the “traditional” way to the summit is still pretty snow covered and doesn’t look fun to cross. We opted to stay on the left side and stay as high on the ridge as we could, which involved some pretty exposed class 4 moves but was better then crossing steep snow patches. Again, super solid rock all the way to the summit block.

The traverse to Mount Wilson truly begins as soon as you step off the summit block of Diente. Go back the way you came (some sketchy down climbing if you came up the left side of the ridge). Get back to the organ pipes and it’s pretty easy class 3 (highly exposed though) all the way to the narrow section. When you get to this part, stay on the right side of the ridge and stay as close to the top of the ridge as you can. This involves class 4 exposed climbing, with some class 5 portions depending on when you decide to cut back left to the top of the ridge. The rest of the ridge is pretty straightforward, with some exposed downclimbing right before you work your way up Mount Wilson. At this point you have a little scramble up a gully with a decent amount of loose rock (This is also where you descend so make a mental note of this location). Once you get to the final ridge that leads up to the summit STAY TO THE LEFT. The right side is sheer wall/drop off. Work your way towards the top, making some extremely exposed class 4 moves just below the ridge on the left side. Watch for loose rocks here. I almost pulled a boulder down on myself.

Finally make the last move up to Mount Wilson. You pretty much have two options, you can do a pretty comfortable class 5 move up to the summit or make your way around the class 5 pitch to a class 4 (maybe extreme class 3) route up. Enjoy the summit and the traverse you took to get here, it’s a beast! Downclimb this section and do the class 4 moves all over again. Descend the gully with loose rock all the way down the basin and then take Kilpacker back to your car (or campsite if you camped).

We did not do Wilson Peak, kudos to all the people that are able to all 3 in a day. Would recommend just doing Wilson peak separately.

We did the full trail in a day. Started around 6:30 and finished around 4 pm. Lots of route finding, lots of stopping to take in the views and lots of sections that got the blood pumping. Pretty unreal day!