Tioga Pass Road (CA 120) Construction

[Preston]

There will be a significant, and long lasting construction project along the Tioga Pass Road Through September of 2015. If you're planning to use the highway during this time, the construction delays schedule will be good to know. Here's an excerpt from our local news about the project...

"Yosemite, CA — A two-year construction project is underway in Yosemite National Park that will cause up to 60-minute delays for motorists along Tioga Road. This week, crews began working on the multi-phased project, which involves making improvements to the Tuolumne Grove Parking Lot and a 15-mile segment of Highway 120 Tioga Pass. That stretch runs from the Crane Flat intersection to just east of White Wolf. The repairs being done will include culvert drainages, road grading, pavement resurfacing, new signage, and road striping. Park officials say crews will be working in multiple locations along Tioga Road throughout the project, which is slated to end in September of 2015.

Motorists can expect flaggers and/or pilot cars directing traffic through the construction zones. Also, there will be traffic delays.

Here is the Park’s construction schedule, which runs every Sunday night at 11:00 p.m. through Friday afternoon at 4:30 p.m. with these daily delay times:

11:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. 60-Minute Delays
6:00 a.m. to 7:30 a.m. 15-Minute Delays
7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. 30-Minute Delays
3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. 15-Minute Delays
4:30 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. 30-Minute Delays

There will be no work on weekends or holidays. In addition, the Tuolumne Grove Parking Lot will be closed for three weeks in October of this year. There will be access to campgrounds and other visitor services along Highway 120 Tioga Pass."

You can also keep abreast of Yosemite NP road conditions on the Yosemite web site.

--P

[Kevin Crisp]

I can think of worse places to be delayed.

[Drew Wiley]

Thanks. Looks like weekends will be the best time to slip thru.

[ROL]

I can't think of better places to be delayed. (Sorry, Kevin )

[Drew Wiley]

I can't think of being delayed. Not pleasant anywhere, esp behind about 200 other cars, motorhomes, and tour buses. There are two curses to mountain travel :
the mosquito and the motorhome. Now add another one. But it's inevitable somewhere every summer. Last year it was a horrendous delay on Hwy 395 near Lundy Canyon. But the roads take a lot of punishment, and somebody has to fix them during a relatively short work season. Of course, ROL would just jog the whole route between Tioga Pass and Donner Pass, and pass everyone up. ... after, of course, that twenty-eight buck elk burger at the Mobile Station in Lee Vining (don't ask
me what one tastes like - I can't afford it! I gotta buy film).

[ROL]

I can't think of being delayed. Not pleasant anywhere, esp behind about 200 other cars, motorhomes, and tour buses. There are two curses to mountain travel :
the mosquito and the motorhome. Now add another one. But it's inevitable somewhere every summer. Last year it was a horrendous delay on Hwy 395 near Lundy Canyon. But the roads take a lot of punishment, and somebody has to fix them during a relatively short work season. Of course, ROL would just jog the whole route between Tioga Pass and Donner Pass, and pass everyone up. ... after, of course, that twenty-eight buck elk burger at the Mobile Station in Lee Vining (don't ask
me what one tastes like - I can't afford it! I gotta buy film).

What a Debbie Downer! That's a lot of ignorant, malicious supposition. I don't jog, I RUN (though arthritically, these days)! Never had the elk burger, but I have split the buffalo meatloaf with my wife on several occasions. At least I buy my wife dinner once and awhile. Now, to go sell another print so that I can afford another date this summer...

[Leszek Vogt]

I'm all for the road upgrade....so long they install heat elements in the roadway....so the Rte 120 is open year around. One can hope, eh ?

Les

[ROL]

I'm all for the road upgrade....so long they install heat elements in the roadway....so the Rte 120 is open year around. One can hope, eh ?

Les

The Tioga corridor is designated backcountry wilderness in the winter. As a damned "go hike to hell" tree–hugger in the nascent environmental movement of they 60s & 70s, I helped sustain a decades long fight to deny a powerful local congressman (BF Fisk) and vested Eastern Sierra interests from developing an all–weather highway immediately south of Yosemite along the San Joaquin River corridor, leaving the wildest Sierra Nevada unbreached wilderness for a longer stretch than anything in the lower 48. I suppose its construction would have been a dream for you tailgate pixmen.

One cannot hope for more, unspoiled, wild places, only protect those that remain.There are reasons to love the Sierra (and California) for what it is, and most places are not. To paraphrase a maxim, if you can't stand the cold, stay out of the backcountry.

Clearing Winter Storm, Half Dome

[Drew Wiley]

Yes. ... I remember that road squabble well, since we lived right on the edge of the San Joaquin canyon. I don't know if that would have been a realistic all-weather
route to begin with. But back then it was an issue of protecting this corridor, along with what is now the Kaiser wilderness at the lower end, on the opposite side of
the canyon. (I have spent many a May morning atop the summit of Kaiser Peak, watching the sun rise over the second deepest canyon in North America - the canyon is twice as deep below Kaiser Ridge as the Grand Canyon), and then of course, the fight over Mineral King, an incredible jewel that Disney had plans to develop into a titanic ski resort. So yes... my trail-running friend... that activity does place you somewhere on my hero list. ... We hillbillys on the other hand...
well, we were more apt have used George Washington Hayduke as our model for how to deal with unwanted backcountry roadbuilders.

[Drew Wiley]

And yes, I do apologize for using the word "jog". But I kinda reserve the word "running" for back in those days when people traversing the Sierra had a distinct incentive to run... with grizzlies bears or whatever on their tail..... i.e., "nontrail running", which was a sport developed at least fifteen thousand years ago, when
grizzles themselves had reason to avoid far bigger critters. I had to settle for simply being treed by range bulls .... but that was cheap thrills enough. Now I no longer jog or run. I merely plod. If had had an official cowboy hat, it might be called a mosey, or perhaps a saunter if it were into an elk burger joint... but cowboy
hats fall off when you've got a huge backpack right behind them, so I've neglected that part of the large format fashion statement, along with the beard. But I do have an original Kelty Glendale pack, and hopefully will turn another ash handle for my old ice axe one of these days.