Yosemite: Main Entry Gets a Reopen Date

Big Oak Flat Road, from the west, will once again be a way in to the national park.

THE WINTER STORMS OF 2016-2017... will definitely be spoken about in song, story, legend, and memory, for decades to come. The Sierra Nevada's lofty peaks saw a snowpack that mountain observers had only daydreamed about a few years back, while several higher elevation thoroughfares took a thorough thrummeling. It's not even the park's famous Tioga Pass we refer to here, which always closes in the winter, due to a prevalence of mondo, can't-drive-through-'em drifts; other byways and highways around the state, from Highway 1 in Big Sur to Big Oak Flat Road into Yosemite National Park, were dealt some notable blows due to the dramatic weather (read: soil-y, muddy slides covering places that would normally hold pass-through cars). While the epic drifts are still being addressed with some mighty plowing on the Tioga Pass, with a 2017 opening still weeks away, fans who'd like to enter the national park from the west, along Big Oak Flat road, have some merry-month-of-May-style good news. Big Oak Flat will reopen on...

MONDAY, MAY 1... at the bright-and-bushy-tail'd hour of 5 in the morning. An important first note, though, about this Highway 120 west entry into the park: "Road work will still be underway when the road reopens" on May 1, with "one-lane traffic closures" with the expected waits hovering around, or up to, 15 minutes. Also? Don't attempt to take the road after 7 each night, for now, for it'll shutter for more work (and stay shuttered each night through to 5 a.m.). For the full story on Big Oak Flat, and what's doing on the well-traveled, gotta-see-Yosemite road, begin your journey here.

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