When Friday night arrived, Shannon and I sat down to try and figure out a nice outing to do on Saturday. After some back-and-forth, we settled on Mount Agassiz, a high peak in the north part of the Palisades that’s easily accessible from the Bishop Pass Trail. I had climbed this peak last summer and we had tried to climb it together later that summer. Unfortunately, that outing was on the second day of the Creek Fire and awful smoke blew east, leading to unhealthy air quality, obscured views, and a hasty retreat. We hoped not to repeat that affair.

We were up early, just before 4 to head south and try to beat the afternoon thunderstorms off the summit. At 6:30 we pulled into the South Lake parking lot next to another hiker and headed up the trail.

The north face of Mount Goode over Long Lake. I seem to take this photo every time I walk by, it still hasn’t gotten old!

Near Bishop Lake, the vaguely rounded summit of Mount Agassiz appeared high above. The usual route up this peak is the chute that rises from the snowfield seen hereon the north face of the peak.

Before long we were atop Bishop Pass, enjoying the view of Mount Humphreys, Mount Goode, Hurd Peak, and the Bishop Creek Lakes to the north. We stopped and talked with a group of backpackers who were finishing up the North Lake / South Lake loop. We took a few photos of them with a cutout of their friend who wasn’t able to make the trip before we each headed on our way.

The Inconsolable Range to our east.

Some clusters of Sky Pilot on Mount Agassiz. We opted to take the chute just west of the usual chute on our way up. I found the climbing here a bit more interesting and engaging, with several class 3 sections at the top. Before long we merged into the main chute and joined several other groups climbing to the summit. We saw the other hiker (runner?) we met in the parking lot heading down already. She was quick!

Shannon climbing the chute on Mount Agassiz. It would have been better to bring helmets, but we forgot to throw them in our bags at 4 in the morning.

The view north as we neared the summit.

The view west to the Black Divide and Mount Goddard from the final summit slope.

We reached the summit around 11:30 and joined three or four other groups who were snacking and taking photos. It sounded like most of them were from LA, but there were a few from the Bay Area. This is apparently quite a popular climb on the weekend, I think we saw about 15 different people heading up and down.

The Palisades from Mount Agassiz, with a thunderstorm beginning to threaten above.

The view south/southwest.

Devils Crags, at the south end of the Black Divide, and Giraud Peak to our west. We didn’t linger on the summit too long, just long enough to sign the register, get a snack, and take a few photos. After maybe 20 minutes we were headed down off the summit behind several other parties.

Shannon descending the main chute back to Bishop Pass. With several groups below us we were careful not to knock any rocks loose. Fortunately, it’s not quite steep enough for rocks to really fall too far, despite the steep-looking photo. I think they say the camera adds 15 degrees, right?

After picking our way down much class 2 and passing several of the groups ahead of us we were most of the way back down to Bishop Pass and we came across… an avocado! Knowing that avocados are not native here, we dutifully packed it out.

After a short rest at Bishop Pass we headed down the rocky trail towards the lakes.

Mount Agassiz from the Bishop Pass Trail. We were somewhere around here when we heard the first thunderclap of the day. While we didn’t hear anything to our south, an impressive thunderstorm formed to our north over Mount Tom, which produced a good bit of thunder.

Mount Goode again.

We made it back to the car without incident. On our drive back home, we got a kick out of the huge thunderstorm over Mount Tom. The rainfall was so thick we couldn’t see the mountain from Bishop, and as we headed north on 395 we crossed the outflow boundary while the thunderstorm began to collapse, causing a very strong wind to blow across the highway. Fortunately it didn’t cause any damage (for us), but it was an impressive sight to behold.

We decided to sleep in a bit and enjoy some closer-to-town pursuits the next day, so my week of hikes came to an end. In the past 8 days I had hiked 92 miles with 34,000’ of climbing, summiting 8 SPS peaks, plus 3 more other peaks that are in Secor but not on the SPS list. Not bad!