Back from Trip... notes on Hwy 120 through Yosemite, Lee Vining Canyon
Related: Eastern Sierra, Lee Vining Canyon area, peak bagging, Yosemite
Back from my trip. Good timing—the 2023 Mac Pro M2 Ultra shows up today but I cannot give it much attention for a few days.
I have a ton of stuff to report on.
High country conditions
Mid-July looks more like mid-May. Winter took a terrible toll on every avalanche prone canyon over the entire Eastern Sierra. That’s nature—destruction is the price of growth, just as death is the price of life. Wiped out areas will see fantastic growth next year, just as burned areas are now in most areas lush and green, supporting far more wildlife than before, such as deer.
Birds sing for joy daylong everywhere. Beavers above 8000' all died overwinter. The drone of insects is a background noise even at 10600' elevation as the high altitude superbloom keeps moving upslope.
If you like nature, get your ass over there and up any trail—it’s amazing.
There is a more snow in the high country than in all of recorded history. Every creek and river runneth over as frothing whitewater, and nearly every usually dry drainage is trickling with water.
Every meadow nearby is a boggy mess, and oddly the mosquitoes are not too bad in most places. But dang there were some very large and aggressive ones at 10100' elevation in White Mountains... strange at high altitude... some new species?
Road closures
Lee Vining Canyon road (Hwy 120 leading up to Tioga Pass) might reopen around July 21. I spoke directly with a CalTrans manager who indicated that 1000 feet of railing were wiped-out by avalanche, and that the usual nasty slide area was continuing to dump all sorts of rocks onto the roadway. The road to Saddlebag Lake is still blocked by snow, and that’s Forest Service territory (not CalTrans). Bicyclists are free to ride Hwy 120 up to Tioga Pass, according to Caltrans. I don’t know about Hwy 120 within Yosemite boundaries.
An avalanche wiped-out half of the roadway near Olmstead Point on Hwy 120 in the high country of Yosemite. There is no known opening date for Hwy 120 through Yosemite and that’s up to NPS (National Park Service). Their operating procedure, like the Forest Service (disservice) today, is to close the entire road even if there are issues only on side roads and/or even if it’s a tiny portion of the roadway—rather than allow access from either side up to near the problem area.
