Once that last piece of rock work is done, Andriessen said, crews will begin repairing and replacing guardrails damaged or destroyed over the winter. Caltrans crews finished clearing snow from that steep, winding section weeks ago and have been busy ever since removing boulders deposited on the roadway during the winter and restoring roadside berms that help contain rockfalls.Ĭhristopher Andriessen, spokesperson for Caltrans District 9, said in an email Friday that rock clearing continues in an area called Blue Slide, about midway along Highway 120 between the pass and the town of Lee Vining. Repair work is also continuing to the east of Tioga Pass along the road’s state-owned continuation, Highway 120. In a screenshot from a National Park Service video, a bulldozer and snowplow work to clear the Tioga Road, Yosemite National Park’s high-country route, on June 21, 2023. “Almost all of them have taken some damage, and some of them are just completely destroyed.”īecause of all the assessment and repair work, the park says it still cannot say when the road will open. “There’s a fair number of buildings up there,” Lyon said. Lyon said part of the delay in lifting travel restrictions in the area is the need to assess and repair roadside restrooms, staff housing and other facilities damaged during the winter. Lyon said crews have cleared that section of road but that avalanche damage to one lane there will require traffic control regulated by temporary stoplights when the road opens. The best known and perhaps most dangerous of those avalanche zones is adjacent to Olmsted Point, a site famed for its spectacular views. As it does every year, it has also involved trying to clear the more than two dozen segments of the road that are prone to avalanches. That work has involved months of plowing with tracked vehicles, bulldozers, rotary plows and other heavy equipment. “Everyone’s been talking about what a crazy, epic winter we’ve had and just the monumental task of getting that road open,” said Steve Lyon, a Yosemite National Park ranger, earlier this week.
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