Giraud Peak
- Caitlin Roake
- Jul 16, 2025
- 4 min read
Trailhead: Bishop Pass
Elevation: 12608
Route: Southeast Face
Difficulty: Class 3
After a long day on the Citadel , I scrapped plans to visit the Ionian Basin and instead decided to climb the peak looming over my campsite at the west end of Dusy Basin. Again I knew almost nothing about this peak except the sparse words from Secor - The southeast slope can be reached from Dusy Basin by following the north ridge of Peak 12,265. The ridge steepens at approximately 11,400 feet it's best to traverse right into a gully.
GG and I have an agreement that on solo trips we stay on Class 3 terrain and below out of respect for the others sanity. I could see that Giraud had a more direct route to the summit, the east ridge, which Secor described as - many exposed class 4 moves with an exposed finger traverse above the north face. I'm not sure how a fingertip traverse counts as class 4 but I will leave that to others to discover.
Again I packed a small running vest with water, 1000 calories worth of food, a garmin inreach, and a light jacket. The era of satellite communication devices is an odd one. I'm travelling solo, but my habit is to share a map via inReach with GG, who can then see my position about every 20 minutes or so. I guess if I failed to manifest back at our house he could trace me to an approximate location, which is somewhat comforting. I think it would be enormously stressful if I were to become one of the many people who disappear into the Sierra without a trace.
I crossed the stream north of my campsite and the ridge to peak 12,265 picked up immediately. Very quickly I was delighted. The ridge undulated between Dusy basin to the east and Le Conte canyon to the west. Occasional slabs and blocks interrupted my path with a few playful class 3 moves. I worried a little as I approached 11,400 feet. Secor states that the ridge steepens at this point and he recommends moving right into a chute. I could see a cliff above me on the ridge, and to the right of it an awful looking scree chute that I hated immediately.
I have a difficult relationship with scree. On the one hand, it's one of the safer mediums in the Sierra. Falling is usually only embarrassment and flesh wounds. On the other hand, walking uphill in what is basically sand is draining and small blocks frequently smash your toes. Every step in scree is different and it feels impossible to fall into a rhythm or even just maintain yourself in an upright position. Strolling up my delightful blocky ridge, I dreaded being forced off of it into the scree field.
Just as Secor warned, at 11,400 a cliff loomed over me obscuring my view of the ridge line. The scree waited to my right. I couldn't make myself bail into the loose rocks. I ventured left and then right along the cliff looking for an opening that I could convince myself was Class 3. After much consternation and false starts, I wound my way through a maze of blocks on the right side of the impasse to regain the ridge. Phew. Scree averted.
The upper ridge was even better than the lower ridge with clean, secure granite ridges and slabs. I had found a way better than Secor! Well he had the whole Sierra to survey and likely not as much time on individual features as I have. My ridge intersected with the East ridge of Giraud and I sand-skated down the backside towards Giraud's southeast face. The pika and marmots of this drainage seemed less familiar with humans and squeaked angrily with me as I passed. The marmots especially seemed quite fat and sleek for this early in the summer.
It was unclear when exactly to start climbing Giraud from the south, so I leaned heavily on Caltopo to find a point at which I was approximately below the summit before starting upwards (to avoid ending up on the aforementioned "class 4" east ridge). The southeast slope of Giraud has aspirations to be a fun climb - there are long sections of solid rock steps - but suffers also from the "blocks perched on sand" phenomenon that makes so many peaks in the Sierra a slog. Fortunately I had an audiobook - NOS4A2 (get it, Nosferatu?) by Joe Hill which was engaging enough to keep me moving upward. Joe Hill is Steven King's son, and controversially, I think the better writer of the two.
I can say nothing bad about the summit, which featured a perch out of the wind with views of the Palisades and Black Divide. I was so comfortable that I took a nap on the slabs after signing the summit register. I casually retraced my steps and made it back to camp in the early afternoon. My notes from the day read - Climbed Giraud peak via the North Ridge of its satellite peak class 3 and then the southeast face of Giraud (spicy class 2). Took a walk after dinner. Many jumping trout and two grouse. Hummingbirds in the penstemon. Feeling like I should have spent more time in the Sierra.
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