Mount Dana Trail

Mount Dana Trail is the common, unmaintained out-and-back from Tioga Pass to the 13,061-foot summit. Plan on about 5.4 miles round trip and roughly six hours, with around 3,100 feet of climbing. You start close to 10,000 feet, so the altitude adds effort from the first mile. This is a very hard day hike, not a quick summit stroll. I would choose it only if you are comfortable with a long climb on loose ground at high elevation.

The common start is by the Tioga Pass East Entrance Station. Park in the Gaylor Lakes lot and cross Tioga Road to the small dirt tread near the Authorized Vehicles Only sign. There is no marked, maintained Mount Dana trailhead, and the route is not maintained by the National Park Service. The lot has limited parking and vault toilets. A broad plateau about two miles up makes a reasonable turnaround if the final climb is too much; that shorter outing is still about four miles round trip and gains substantial elevation.

The first stretch is fairly gentle through pine forest toward Dana Meadows. Around the first mile, the route climbs above treeline and gets steeper among boulders. The tread fades in places as scree and loose rocks take over, with more than 1,000 feet of climbing through the next mile. There is little shelter once you are high on the slope, and the faint line and scattered cairns can make the way less obvious than the lower approach.

Near 11,700 feet, the route reaches a flatter bench with a couple of rock windbreaks and wide views west across the Sierra. From there, a faint traverse crosses the plateau before the final steep section: loose talus switchbacks gain about 1,200 feet in roughly 0.7 mile. The summit is a rocky, uneven high point on the Yosemite-Inyo National Forest boundary. From the top, look toward Mono Lake, Mount Lyell, Tioga and Saddlebag lakes; a short walk along the north summit edge opens a view down to Dana Lake with Mono Lake and the Sierra beyond.

Dana Meadows’ small kettle ponds were left by melting blocks of glacial ice. The mountain is named for James Dwight Dana, a 19th-century geologist. The high slopes are mostly reddish metamorphic rock, and in the late season you may see alpine flowers such as sky pilots and columbine among the stones. Snow can linger on Mount Dana into July, even after the road has reopened.