Giraud Peak

3 Oct 92

By: Larry Tidball

We had 12 participants for this post-quota period trip over Bishop pass. Saturday was planned as a leisure dav with the agenda to get to a campsite at lake 10,734 in the lower Dusy Basin early in the day to allow for end of the season slothfulness in the afternoon. Hiking up to Bishop Pass. Scot, Jack and Barbee couldn't let the manv fish in the lakes go untested They hung back broke out the fishing rods and gave them a go (the fish won). The rest of the group pushed on to Bishop Pass where we had and early lunch/ snack. Barbara Cohen needed Agassiz and Vi decided to keep her company on the climb, while the rest of the group headed on down to camp. The afternoon was spent reading napping and enjoying the fine early fall weather. Later, the 3 fisherfolk joined me as I fished the lake at our camp. There we caught enough to round out the happy-hour snacks into dinner.

Sunday we got an 7:00 start for the peak so as to not get out to the cars too late. We followed the excellent description in RJ.'s book. Crossing the creek between sections of the strung out lake, we climbed the steep rock steps opposite our camp to reach the NW/SE running ridge leading to peak 12,240+. As the ridge steepened at a rocky step. we cut right across a gully to arrive at the saddle East of Giraud. From there it was down the scree a few hundred feet and around to the easy SE slope of the peak. In planning this trip, I had looked at old issues of the ECHO and had noted that groups had some difficulty in climbing the peak from Dusy Basin. This is probably due to Roper's description of the East Arete as "easy." Easy 4th class, from the looks of it.

From the summit rock at 10:00, we enjoyed the great views of the Palisades and the Devils Crags. Evidence of the infrequency of the climbs of this peak is the register book. Placed in 1985, only 5 pages have been filled in the intervening 7 years. After retracing our route back to camp, we took a quick lunch break as we packed up. The hike out to South Lake went quickly, and we all headed for home at a reasonable hour (6:00). Joining us for the weekend were: Jack Wickel. Barbara Cohen, Barbee Hoffmann, Ellen Miller, Greg Geriach, Bnan Smith. Rhoda Gilson, Vi Grasso, Mario Gonzalez, and Kent Sandleman.