Wed, Aug 11, 2021
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Day 6 was the easiest of the 2021 Challenge, designed to get us back early for
our afternoon cook-off at the Church of Grundy in Bishop. Panorama Peak is
unofficially named and lies on the west side of the Sierra Crest, about a mile
and a half southwest of Bishop Pass. An easy day usually means
a large group
at the start, and this was no exception. We had some folks heading to nearby
Mt. Goode instead (or as a bonus), and Clement, having already been to Panorama,
planned to visit Sky Haven instead. The Bishop Pass Trail starting from South
Lake is one of the most popular on the east side, as it affords one of the
easier routes over the Sierra Crest as well as perhaps the most scenic. Our
6a start nearly coincided with
sunrise, though the hike to the pass
would mostly happen
in the shade.
I started off in the back of the pack, giving
me time to chat with a number of folks
on our way to the pass. The lake
surfaces were calm as we passed by
Hurd Peak and
Long Lake,
offering nice
reflections of Mt. Goode and other summits. The pile of
deer carcasses below Bishop Pass has been
reduced to a scattering of bones, the flies that kept vigil here for several
years now gone. At the 2hr mark, we met up with the
Schaper brothers
(who had started earlier) atop
Bishop Pass, before descending partway
into
Dusy Basin.
Panorama Peak can be seen as an extension
from the Sierra Crest, forming the northwestern boundary of the large basin.
I found myself alone not long after leaving the trail, about half a mile from
Bishop Pass. There are various ways to reach Panorama, and our large group
explored most of them, it seemed. One option stays closer to the crest above
11,800ft before traversing easier slopes to the southwest. I used what seemed
an easier option, dropping to around 11,600ft and then traversing southwest
and west from there. I climbed up the peak's east slopes, an unexciting
pile of granite rubble, to get myself to
the summit shortly after 9a.
There were already a handful of folks when I arrived, more arriving as we hung
about the summit. The ill-fated SRC had left an
aluminum register box
on the summit in 1991. The register was left by Gordon MacLeod
in 1980,
now with 25 pages of entries - fairly popular as Sierra peaks go. The views are
stunning, and today was a good day to take them in. To
the east
stretches the length of Dusy Basin, framed by the Palisades peaks behind it.
Two miles to the south rises Giraud Peak, of nearly the same elevation, across
Dusy Creek, with many, many peaks in the distance. The view
west is
framed by the Black Divide across LeConte Canyon. And a surprisingly good view
of the
Devils Crags far to the southwest.
I had already been to the obvious bonus peaks in the area - No Goode and Goode,
but there was a point on the Sierra Crest that is found in the PB database as
Peak 12,689ft that I was interested in visiting, mostly to see if it had a
register. I was surprised to find several others interested in this detour
which garnered no bonus credit, though I probably shouldn't have been - it was
still quite early in the day and there was no need to be rushing back. So Tom,
Austin and I headed off for the non-bonus, with a few others bound for Mt.
Goode. It took us an hour to get from one summit to the other as we made a
descending traverse off Panorama to the northeast, across a drainage
and then ascending to the slightly higher
Peak 12,689ft. We found a
register dating
to 1989,
this one far busier with 50 pages of entries. It's popularity
is no doubt due to its close proximity to Bishop Pass. Rather than return to
Bishop Pass, we decided to descend a steep,
rubbly chute to the
northeast that would allow us to drop to Bishop Lake more directly. It wasn't
the greatest of routes, but it worked, and with
careful attention to
where the three of us were descending, managed to avoid dropping rocks on each
other. It was
easy cruising once we
reached the lake, and it
would take us almost an hour and a half to find our way back
down the trail to South Lake and
the TH.
It was shortly before 1p when we returned, back before the rest of the crew
save Robert, who managed to get to Mt. Goode and back an hour before us to take
the stage win - well done, sir!
Continued...
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