Tioga Pass (Yosemite) Day Use Opening Timeline
NPS has opened Tioga Pass for through traffic but not for day use recreation. I can't find any historical information about how long after the initial opening it typically opens for day use. Anyone know when I could expect the pass into Yosemite to be open for day-use recreation hiking? Hoping to go the weekend of July 4th roads permitting, but am worried it will still be closed due to the large amount of snowfall they received this year in the sierras.
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The NPS announced that the road will open unrestricted on July 1st (conditions permitting).
This post was sourced from https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/a/22517. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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If you look at the historical data the latest in the year that's its opened is July 1st, and in 2017 which was a very similar year for amount of snow it opened June 29th. That year the road was left completely closed after it had been plowed to let things dry out first, it sounds like this year they are letting people drive through but not stop.
The only thing that would change is that this year they are apparently changing the parking in Toulemme meadows and that may change how it works.
The other thing to consider is even if you are able to drive up there the going will be rougher than if it were a drier year.
In the summer of 2017 I did one trip south Tioga around Mt. Ritter June 20-26, one just south of Tioga around Mt Parker June 29th- July 5 and then Cloud's Rest On July 6th.
There were places on those trips where the snow was still 10 ft deep and almost the whole trail up to Cloud's Rest had snow on the trail, the river was almost up to my waist and in general it was much harder walking then if it had been a dry summer.
On the other hand there are plenty of cool spots on the drive up if you weren't able to get all the way to the pass or if there was too much snow up there.
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