(Yosemite National Park’s Second Highest Peak)

This Trail Report is dedicated to our young friend Dana, who lives her life with grace and confidence.

Here we have a roughly five-and-a-half-mile (round trip) day hike located on the eastern boundary of Yosemite National Park. The trailhead is located at the Tioga Pass entrance.

My reading companions on this trip were Little Wonder, by Sophie Chen Keller (completed) and On Trails, by Robert Moor (in progress).

If you desire to complete this day hike with grace and confidence, then you must prepare!

Train! Find a nice long, steep hill. Next, go up and down that hill. Repeat. If you live in The Rockies or The Sierra, you may perhaps already be well conditioned for this hike.

Hydrate! Stay hydrated by drinking at least two to three liters of water a day leading up to the day of the big hike.

Start early! Not only is it cooler with less sun exposure, you can avoid the threat of afternoon thunderstorms.

Acclimate! This hike begins at 10,000 feet elevation. It ends at 13,000 feet. I recommend spending at least two nights camped comfortably at Tuolumne Meadows (elevation 8,600 feet). Bring a hammock. Avoid alcohol. Reduce your caffeine intake.

While cooling your heels at Tuolumne Meadows, go ahead and walk around. Do an easy, flat day hike – of which there are many. People watch. The campground is lovely. Admire the many historical stone restroom buildings. Covet thy neighbor’s perfect campsite. Go soak in the river. Read the lost and found bulletin board outside the general store.

• LOST: My will.
  Last seen shortly after the alarm went off.
• LOST: Yesterday.
  Please don’t bother looking. It’s gone.

• FOUND: Someone else’s perspective.
  Very useful. Please claim.
• FOUND: Inner peace.
  Unclaimed. Surprisingly lightweight.
• FOUND: A perfectly good reason to turn around.

• LOST: Everything I came here to find.
• FOUND: Everything I didn’t know I was looking for.

And by all means attend a ranger-led talk.

Tuolumne Meadows has a nearly one hundred year record of offering ranger-led talks every single day of every summer season. Many days they offer four or five talks. Some are short and some are long.

Prime Time is The Campfire Talk.

I was fortunate enough to sandwich my hike between two amazing Campfire Talks.

Wednesday evening’s talk was “The Perfect Fire” led by Ranger Tim.

Ranger Tim’s topic was about fire and wildfire specifically. The topic has become a divisive one in today’s political climate. What hasn’t? But this evening’s talk was also about the importance of conversation. Ranger Tim had more questions than he had answers, which allowed people to talk and contribute.

How do you build the perfect fire? Cabin or Tepee? What is the best way to cook a marshmallow? Golden Brown or Charred? He asked a lot of questions. He lamented how so many “conversations” had stopped or ended. He told a long story about some ravens and an ancient sequoia tree – their conversation. After every fire, the Ravens would visit their friend, the Sequoia Tree. None of the fires were the same. Some fires cleared the understory. Some fires released seeds. Some fires entered the canopy. The Ravens were worried. Wasn’t it bad? The Sequoia wouldn’t commit to an opinion. The story had no real ending. No closure. But they were talking. And listening. Were we listening? During the talk, people shared their anxieties regarding wildfire. The Ranger wrote them down. At the end of the Raven Story, he committed the scraps of paper with our worries about fire to the fire itself, where they went up in flames. The Perfect Fire. It was a serious talk but filled with laughter and joy. Smiles all around. It was a Campfire Talk after all. But so unusual, so interesting, and a bit subversive. Designed to provoke thought and conversation.

It provided me with plenty to think about the next day as I plodded up to the summit of Mount Dana.

Thursday evening’s talk was “Epic Journeys” led by Ranger Lance.

Ranger Lance talked about the requirements of an epic journey – one that is Homeric. He then shared five examples from the natural world: the wolverine, the mule deer, the mountain lion, the Sierra newt and finally the Black Swift.

The Black Swift blew everyone away. There were so many questions. Nobody wanted to go back to their camp.

We owe much of what we know about the Black Swift to a little-known individual who, ironically, has the largest body of writing on Yosemite by a single author – and we are not talking about John Muir. Here she is dancing with a black bear.

Enid Michael was an American ranger with the National Park Service, assigned to Yosemite National Park in California. She was the first ranger-naturalist in Yosemite and the first female ranger in the National Parks system. Enid was also an accomplished mountaineer and botanist.

She and her husband discovered the first Black Swift nesting site in Yosemite National Park. As it turns out, Yosemite Valley is the perfect place for a Black Swift to raise their young. They spend the summer here, nesting. They prefer sheer cliffs with a constant flow of water nearby. The first Black Swift was observed disappearing behind Vernal Falls. Mysterious. The real mystery was where they went in the fall.

After their summer stay, they take to the skies with their children and return home. Home is Brazil. That’s a four-thousand-mile migration! They average 200 miles a day. They spend almost all of this time living high in the atmosphere, eating on the fly. Then, at the beginning of the next summer, they return to Yosemite – to the exact same spot.

Listening to the Rangers was an inspiration. In the face of budget cuts and firings, they were persevering despite a collapsing bureaucracy by continuing to do exactly what they had always done. And doing it well.

Upon awakening early at Tuolumne Meadows campsite F4 on summit day, my fitness watch alerted me to my current oxygen saturation: 98%. Let’s go!

I may have overprepared, because the hike was not nearly as difficult as I expected. That’s okay. The summit came as a sudden surprise. The view was “discombobulating”. I felt like I was back in the Visitors Center looking at a diorama of the park. I could see everything, and everything was laid out in miniature.

I hung out at the summit with a nice couple from Berkeley as we challenged ourselves to identify as many geographical features as possible.

For my summit snack I chose Original Recipe Chex Mix, which pairs nicely with Tang. To the Tang I add some electrolytes.

Despite the grim state of our nation today, you can find what you need at Tuolumne Meadows. I did. I also enjoyed watching other people do the same in their own way. Sitting by the river. Attending a Ranger Led Activity. Hiking a mountain.

It’s amazing what a few days at Tuolumne can do for the soul.