We present an analysis of the stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) processes based on the methods of differential geometry. The present work was inspired by an excellent article by Shore et al (Unanyan et al 1999 Phys. Rev. A 59 2910). We demonstrate how a purely geometric interpretation of the adiabatic passage in quantum tripod systems as a Riemannian parallel transport of the dark state vector along the Bloch sphere allows describing the evolution of the system for a given sequence of Stokes, pump and control laser excitation pulses. In combination with the Dykhne-Davis-Pechukas adiabaticity criterion and the minimax principle for circles on a sphere, this approach allows obtaining the analytical form of the optimal laser pulse sequences for a high fidelity tripod fractional STIRAP. In contrast to the conventional STIRAP in Λ-systems, the Gaussian approximations of the optimal laser pulse sequences allow reaching the infidelity of 10⁻⁷ for the adiabaticity parameter of 300 without noticeable oscillatory or other detrimental effects on population transfer accuracy.