If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
SCENIC YOSEMITE ROAD SET TO OPEN IN TIME FOR MEMORIAL DAY
Associated Press
20 May 2008
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif.—Yosemite National Park officials say the highest elevation route through the Sierra Nevada is scheduled to reopen for all vehicle traffic in time for Memorial Day weekend.
Tioga Road is one of Yosemite National Park’s most scenic drives and a popular east-west crossing of the Sierra Nevada. It will open beginning Wednesday.
Campgrounds, a general store and gas station along the stretch of Highway 120 won’t open for a few more weeks, but bathrooms will be available starting this week.
The road is closed much of the year due to heavy snowfall and the threat of avalanches. Summer visitors typically use the road to enter the park from the east and to head toward the Tuolumne Meadows area from Yosemite Valley.
Park officials say the cables on Half Dome are also now up for the season.
Yosemite News Release
May 8, 2008
For Immediate Release
School Bus Collision Causes Minor to Moderate Injuries in Yosemite National
Park
Two school busses headed toward Yosemite Valley from the Yellow Middle
School in Newman, California collided today in a rear end collision. The
collision occurred at about 10:55 am approximately 1 mile north of the Big
Oak Flat/ El Portal Road intersection along the Big Oak Flat Road. 40
children total were on board the two busses. Injuries are reported as being
minor to moderate.
Children are being transported by ground ambulance to John C. Fremont
Hospital in Mariposa, California. The cause of the collision is under
investigation.
-NPS-
HWY. 140 TO GET REPLACEMENT BRIDGES
Mark Grossi
The Fresno Bee
23 April 2008
The California Department of Transportation soon will replace emergency bridges with $8 million temporary bridges around a massive rock slide on Highway 140, along the western route to Yosemite National Park.
The temporary bridges are expected to be finished in the next couple of months, though there is no specific timetable, said Caltrans spokeswoman Lisa Balcom.
Traffic will continue during construction, using emergency bridges that were installed in 2006 after the rock slide.
The new bridges will be able to accommodate 45-foot buses, she said. The current bridges can only handle vehicles up to 28 feet.
The new bridges will function the same way as the old ones. Signals will allow east-west traffic to alternate using the one-way bridges, which bypass the rock slide by moving vehicles across the Merced River for a short distance.
About 70,000 tons of rock and debris block the highway about 12 miles west of the Yosemite entrance. State officials are in the process of deciding on a permanent bypass, which might cost up to $62 million.
Mariposa businesses lost money in 2006, but they recovered somewhat in 2007, officials said. Business owners are anxious to know when the permanent fix will be completed. Caltrans had estimated as early as 2012.
Public meetings on environmental documents for the permanent fix are expected in El Portal and Mariposa this summer, Balcom said. Caltrans wants to complete the documentation by August, she said.
