Dana, Gibbs

19 Jul 1997 - by Greg Johnson

It was interesting to me to read Schuman's trip report of North Peak and Mount Conness because I made a similiar, although more modest, one day excursion up to Yosemite. Since July 4th weekend, when Dave Briney and I climbed Tioga Peak and Mt. Morrison, I had been anxious to get back to the Sierras and bag a couple more peaks. I set my sights on Mt. Dana and Mt. Gibbs.

On Saturday July 19th I left San Francisco at 4:00 am and arrived at Tioga Pass at 9:15. Taking the use trail from the Tioga Pass entrance station (9,945') I summitted the 13,053' Dana at 11:30. Looking south I could see Mt. Gibbs. The approach, dropping down the steep talus on the south side of Dana to the saddle and up the North Ridge of Gibbs, looked a lot more interesting and shorter than dropping down the valley from the saddle and then ascending the class 1 North slope further west. It took me an hour and a half to get down 1200' to the saddle. At this point, as I lay resting in the grass, the thought of going back to my car driving to Lake Tenaya for a swim and then heading home for an early nights sleep was quite appealing.

Hiking out of the saddle onto a jagged talus strewn ridge lead to steeper class 2 climbing. About 200 feet below the summit the remainder of the ridge did not look like anything I wanted to commit to so I traversed over to the East face where a large chute brought me to the 12,764' summit of Gibbs a little before 3:00 pm. Dropping down the West and then Northwest slopes I angled across Dana's lower slope on a direct line that brought me to my car at 5:30 pm and I was back home before 11:00.


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