The Dana Meadows can be found at the eastern entrance to
Yosemite National Park
Yosemite National Park ( ) is an American national park in California, surrounded on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers an ...
, at the foot of
Mount Dana, not far from
Tuolumne Meadows and the
Tioga Pass entrance station.
Description
The Dana Fork of the
Tuolumne River originates adjacent to the meadows, and flows west through them towards its junction with the Lyell Fork of the Tuolumne River.
At an altitude of 9,728 feet (2,965 m), the
meadow
A meadow ( ) is an open habitat, or field, vegetated by grasses, herbs, and other non- woody plants. Trees or shrubs may sparsely populate meadows, as long as these areas maintain an open character. Meadows may be naturally occurring or artif ...
can be covered in snow up to 162 inches (411 cm) deep in wintertime. In June or July, it is springtime in these meadows, but snow can come at any time, especially after 1 September.
Before Yosemite became a park,
Basque sheepherders would graze their flocks here, and in other areas of the
Sierra Nevada
The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primari ...
. Often lonely, they would carve their initials into the trees of the meadow, several of which are still visible. (In hunting season, some animals of the Sierra, such as the deer, have learned to migrate into the park.)
The meadows are named for
James Dwight Dana
James Dwight Dana FRS FRSE (February 12, 1813 – April 14, 1895) was an American geologist, mineralogist, volcanologist, and zoologist. He made pioneering studies of mountain-building, volcanic activity, and the origin and structure of contine ...
(1813–1895), a professor of geology and natural history at
Yale
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
.
[Browning, Peter (1986) ''Place Names of the Sierra Nevada.'' Wilderness Press: Berkeley.]
See also
*
Lyell Meadow
References
Landforms of Yosemite National Park
Landforms of Tuolumne County, California
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