Re: Foresta road really is messed up!

I'm talking about the Foresta Road from Foresta down to El Portal. It has been one of our favorite bike rides and easy hikes. See some good photos at:

http://yosemitenews.info/forum/read.php?3,28199,28199#msg-28199

We were in the park last week, and had time for brief hikes on Thursday and Saturday. Thursday we did the Old Coulterville Road (see link) with no problems. On Saturday morning, on our way home, we decided to do Foresta Road. The first thing that we ran into was this sign:



Well, OK. We had heard that the recent El Portal fire had damaged the bridges. Sure enough, when we got to the first bridge, the railings had burned away.





The two pipes on the left held thick telephone trunk cables, also fried. The ends have been cut and a much smaller cable has been substituted. The new smaller cable has been fished through the conduit buried along the highway, and new power poles have been installed going up to Foresta and beyond. But the first bridge is still functional, since the deck was concrete slabs laid on I-beams. At least, it's OK for pedestrians and bicycles.

But the second bridge is another story. Here the deck was wooden beams laid across steel I-beams. They burned.



It's still possible to get across, though there is a leg-over to be done in the middle. But don't try it on your bicycle.



My buddy's wife and I balked. Not because it is difficult. It's not. But if you did fall off, you would go splat on the rocks below, then roll downstream and over the next waterfall, which is even bigger than the one above. Here is a view looking from the other side of the bridge:



Someone had to go back uphill anyway, to move the car. My buddy went on alone. He sent back some photos to show that just fixing the bridges won't fix the problem. Here are three photos from one spot:







He says that this is just one area among many that need repair. These rocks have come down even before the winter rains. I'm guessing that we won't see Foresta Road open again any time soon, though it wouldn't take much to restore it as a hiking/biking trail....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/17/2015 07:26AM by wherever.

It would be great if this portion of the Foresta Road could be restored as a bike/hiking trail. But where would the money come from? The county? state? federal government?

.

Thanks. Although now I'm a bit bummed didn't take the wife down to the second
bridge last March...

first looked like this then:



was too intent on enjoying Foresta and finding 100s!!! of these:


and a couple of these:

---

It's a shame about the bridge being destroyed. My wife and I have only gone down the old Foresta Road once (didn't go all the way to El Portal but went a good ways past that now-burned bridge). I can't imagine it's going to be a high priority for the park to replace that bridge (actually, is that even inside the park boundary? Without double-checking a map, I'm thinking it's outside the park...not sure if that means it's more or less likely to be repaired/replaced any time soon).

Quote
DavidK42
It's a shame about the bridge being destroyed. My wife and I have only gone down the old Foresta Road once (didn't go all the way to El Portal but went a good ways past that now-burned bridge). I can't imagine it's going to be a high priority for the park to replace that bridge (actually, is that even inside the park boundary? Without double-checking a map, I'm thinking it's outside the park...not sure if that means it's more or less likely to be repaired/replaced any time soon).

According to the Acme mapper, the first bridge is inside the park. It is on the old McCauley Ranch, which was gifted to the park within living memory. The second bridge is outside the park, barely. There is an open gate located where the road leaves the current park boundary.

Foresta Road was maintained by the county. They used to scrape it once a year, since part of the sandy surface gets deep runoff ruts in the winter.

On an unrelated note, there are a bunch of artificial flowers lining a small pool downstream of the last house in Foresta and just before the serious cascades in the creek begin. Was there a fatality there recently?