Re: Tioga Road Plowing to Begin

Yosemite Road crew will begin plowing Tioga Road on Wednesday, April 16. To ensure a safe operation no traffic (foot, bike or administrative) will be allowed on the road during scheduled work hours of 0630 to 1700, Monday through Friday. For access outside of those hours please contact the appropriate District Ranger. There will be no avalanche requirement as the snow levels are extremely low.

Sweet! Only a matter of time until Tuolumne is reachable.

120 is open to the pass from the east side

*Happy Dance*

If we're going to have a drought, might as well enjoy the open passes! Hoping sonora happens soon.

Monitor Pass (Hwy 89) is already open, hopefully Hwy 4 along with Sonora Pass (Hwy 108) isn't to far behind.

But isn't time for us to make our annual Tioga Pass opening day predictions?

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Didn't Sonora Pass already open (and subsequently close again) a few weeks ago?

Given how little snow there was from the Foresta/OBOFRT trailhead to El Cap last weekend (the only significant snow was from the saddle above Ribbon Meadow to just past Ribbon Creek), I'd guess an opening in late April. The open, south-facing areas seem dry to at least 9,000':



What normally keeps the road closed is the risk of avalanches in certain sections, such as Olmstead Point, which I suspect is already dry. For comparison, here is Olmstead Point on April 29, 2012, when the snowpack was roughly twice what it is this year:



The longer-term forecast is hinting at a few more systems hitting the Sierra, but none look substantial.

Quote
calipidder
Hoping sonora happens soon.

Your wish is my command: it's open now.

Apparently they've reached pircupine flat in 1 day

when the road will be open is problematic. If you look at historical openings, you find when the snowpack was 31%, it opened on Apr 29.

However, that was 1988, and there have been dramatic changes in the technology and skill in doing this roadwork.

My guess is that the snow is not the issue, but rather road edge repair and signage replacement. But with so much less snow, I'll bet that will be relatively trivial, compared to normal.

So my thought is that the limiting factor will be the seasonal employees needed to have the road open: LEO's, etc.

with todays progress, I think they could have it open sooner, but I think they'll open it on the 28th. If they are really aggressive with staffing, perhaps the 25th, which is probably logistically possible.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/19/2014 10:21AM by Ken M.