Tuolumne Meadows Menagerie & Mt.Dana (13053ft - 3979m)
(Nighty Night Deer, Dana Peak Marmot, Lembert Dome Chipmunk, Campground Rabbit, Plenty of Huge Mosquitoes & Cordada Rapel )

On Saturday 4am we woke up for a long weekend. We wanted to arrive at Tuolumne Meadows before anyone else to get a first-come first-served campsite. Of course, it was the busiest weekend of the year in Tuolumne Meadows, and the first one with open campgrounds, so our attempt was futile. Some of the campgrounds were still closed for too much snow or water and the others were already packed from the previous days. We drove to the east of Tioga Pass looking for more campgrounds and still found some full and some closed. We found the first free campsite at the last campground that appeared on our map, Aspen Campground. The mosquitoes ravaged us without mercy. Luckily the weather was good and we could still get some exercise bushwhacking from the campground to a no-name 9500 ft peak in direction of Mount Dana.

Later that evening we had company from a deer, which would insist during 2 nights in keeping us company for a while (and trying to steal our food from the table).

On Sunday morning, we got up at 6 to hike Mt. Dana. The previous day we had seen that we didn't need any snow gear unlike expected. There were only a few patches of snow along the whole route, and even those could easily be avoided if necessary. It took us 3.5 hours from the Mono Pass trail head at Tioga Road to the peak (13053ft, 3979m). From the trailhead, we walked less than one mile until we got to the crossing with Dana Fork river. Then, we continued on the left side of the river and hiked up by the west ridge. On the top, a highwayman marmot was trying to get some of our food. Given its well fed appearance it had obviously been successful with its overt attempts on other mountaneers.

We hiked down via the south-east ridge. Our original idea was to traverse to Mt. Gibbs, but we were too tired for that and it would have made for a very long day. We hiked back to the parking lot following the right side of the Dana Fork river, same as we came up. We needed more than 3 hours to make it back. The rocks of Mount Dana's eastern slope are big and not very stable, so our pace was slower than usual.

The next day we changed to Tuolumne Meadows Campground inside the National Park. From there, we hiked to another no-name peak on the way to Ragged Peak, with an altitude of ~10400 ft. It was a very nice hike, and I highly recommend it. We returned via Lembert Dome (9450ft), hiking the easy peak from the east side and going back to the campground via the Pacific Crest Trail at the side of the Lyell Fork River. We were surprised by the little beaches that we found around this side of the meadows and enjoyed being able to wash our dust covered faces in the clear snowmelt water.

In the evening a seemingly very confused and lost rabbit came to search refuge at our tent for a couple of hours.

Tuesday was the day we had to go back home, but we wanted to do at least some short hike. So we decided to climb Indian Rock peak. The trailhead is one mile before Porcupine Campground and has bear boxes. It is a weird hike because you start going down before you actually climb. It was only a few miles, so in 1h10min we were on the top.
The view is spectacular - from Indian Rock one can see the north-west face of Half Dome.

Not surprisingly, and after wonderful weather for 4 days, we started seeing black clouds growing quickly above us. A thunderstorm formed rapidly and we had just enough time to get to the car before the clouds started to let out their content, accompanied by angry growling. Few minutes later our car was bathed in hail. Pretty scary to be out there with those ice rocks coming down onto your head.