The Gridlock of Yosemite National Park

Above, Yosemite Valley during the off-season. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

You can tell it's the summer vacation season at Yosemite National Park. There's plenty of things to see and do, but the roads are so gridlocked and parking is difficult to find that people can't get even out of their cars.

That is why I prefer to visit national parks during the off-season. There's far less traffic to contend with and the place isn't crawling with people. In Yosemite, the Yosemite Valley shuttle system is running, which also is a big help. Other than my drive into the park and leaving the park, my RV stayed put at the North Pines Campground. I either walked or made use of the shuttle during my stay.

The Modesto Bee has an article on the gridlock problems of Yosemite during the summer.

It begins with:

It’s the summer tourist season, and Yosemite Park is gridlocked with traffic. 

At 12:30 on a Saturday afternoon, a long line of cars, buses and RVs that entered the park at Big Oak Flat move slowly along the main paved road past Cascade Falls and on down to merge with vehicles coming east on Highway 140. A quick left turn brings a car into the line of traffic heading into Yosemite Valley. 

Then all vehicles come to a stop. 

For the next two hours, vehicles either sit parked in traffic lanes at a complete halt or they inch forward at a pace far slower than their frustrated passengers, who get out of their vehicles and walk ahead searching for the source of the problem. There are rare surges when vehicles may move forward 100 yards before traffic returns to a gridlocked standstill. There is nowhere to even turn around.

If the above isn't bad enough, after getting into the park (after paying the $30 entrance fee) is another nightmare awaiting visitors:

Park employees at the entrance stations are still continuing to allow literally hundreds of additional vehicles each hour into the Park to jam up behind the already gridlocked traffic. Knowing full well Yosemite Valley is jammed with traffic, park employees are continuing to charge $30 per vehicle and send hundreds of additional vehicles on into the park to literally come to a standstill and then inch forward for hours in a traffic jam. New families become trapped in the traffic jam nightmare.

Instead of enjoying a visit to Yosemite Valley, people are stuck in their cars for hours in a looped traffic jam without ever being able to step out of their cars to see the wonders of the park. Does that sound like fun to you?

To read more, go here.

Tioga Pass: Closed Indefinitely

Above, The Beast at a Tioga Pass turnout last July. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Oh-oh! It looks like Tioga Pass through Yosemite National Park will remain closed. "Indefinitely" is the operative word (at least according to the Bee's email).

The Modesto Bee reported:

Snowmelt flowing over the roadway, along with a variety of infrastructure repairs being made, combine to keep Highway 120/Tioga Road closed through Yosemite National Park, according to the park and Caltrans. 

There’s no estimated opening date for the route, which is closed to all traffic, including bicycles. In years with similar snowpack, the road has opened in late June or early July. In recent dry years – 2012-16 – it opened no later than mid-May, according to a chart on the nps.gov website.

It looks like travelers will have to wait a while longer for the east entrance into Yosemite National Park to open.

To read more, go here.

Tuolumne River In 2007 and 2017 In Yosemite

Above, Yosemite Falls in June 2016. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

To illustrate how much snowfall we received this winter in Yosemite National Park, the Modesto Bee has comparison photos of the Tuolumne River from 2007 and this year.

They wrote:

To illustrate just how high and powerful the rivers and streams are in Yosemite right now the National Park Service sent out a tweet Friday with side by side photos of a portion of the Tuolumne River now compared to 10 years ago.

Read more here: http://www.modbee.com/news/article156686594.html#storylink=cpy

Underground Spring Cracks Yosemite Road

Above, a lake along Yosemite's Tioga Pass Road. Tioga Pass Road
 intersects with Highway 120 near Crane Flat. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

The winter has caused problems with man-made things in our national parks.

A previous blog post noted that heavy snows collapsed a porch roof in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.

Now we find that a big crack that opened up on Highway 120 in Yosemite National Park in February was caused by an underground spring, closing the road.

According to the Modesto Bee:

An underground seasonal spring that began flowing again after being dormant for years was the cause of a 200-foot long fissure resembling an earthquake fault that closed U.S. Highway 120 into Yosemite Valley in February. 

This portion of the road, in the park called Big Oak Flat Road, began cracking in late February. National Park Service crews patched the crack “but it did not hold and it continued to widen and spread and we began conversations with the National Highway Administration,” said Yosemite National Park spokeswoman Jamie Richards. 

Crews had to tear out 200 feet of asphalt and dig 40 feet below the surface of the original road, creating nine tiers to avoid further erosion.

To read more, go here.