Pioneering Tioga: What It Takes to Get the Road Open

Updated on May 14, 2009 by SG

Updated on May 20, 2009 by SG

Snow slide on Tioga Road, June 25, 1942. R. H. ANDERSON, COURTESY NPS, YNPIT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN. The old orchards are blooming on the floor of Yosemite Valley, Mammoth's Lincoln Mountain is (or was yesterday) a private, hiker's-only stash of untracked corn, and at the Mobile Mart in Lee Vining the grass is already green. The squirrels and pine martens are reported out and about in Tuolomne Meadows. With the skies beginning to clear, mere remnant veins of snow along the crest of the Whites, and serious warm weather finally forecast for the weekend, the question begins to nag: when will the pass open?

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Call of the Asphalt

WSJ MagazineGearing up for a long week on the road this month, the annual 500-mile guerrilla book tour—Death Valley, LA, Bakersfield, Sequoia/Kings, Fresno, Yosemite, Sacramento, San Francisco, then back (with luck and some good warm weather) over Tioga to home... The iPod and the air conditioning have grown unreliable. The rear passenger-side window is taped shut. The summer tires are half bald, and cornering to the left there's that exhausted suspension-groan on the right, harbinger of the stoppage of all things. Why do we feel the need to move like this, asks William Least Heat-Moon in a recent essay in WSJ magazine?

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The Collected Sierra Nevada

Photo: Randy Pench
Sacramento Bee/
ZUMA PressCheck out Terray Sylvester's lovely profile of Hal Klieforth, meteorologist, explorer, glider-flight record-holder, and world-class collector of artifacts... in the latest High Country News.

Yosemite/Sierra Guidebook Wins Top Award

Yosemite & the Southern Sierra Nevada: A Complete Guide (Countryman/W.W.Norton) was honored last week as "Best Guidebook of 2008" by the Outdoor Writers Association of California.

See the official press release.

Summer at the Sage—Yeehaw!

Sierra Earth Fest (June 6)... Hot Buttered Rum (July 5)... Blue Turtle Seduction (July 25)...

See you there!

Also look for Blue Turtle Seduction at their perfect venue June 11 and again on September 3.

Meanwhile, check 'em out on YouTube.

Old Man Winter Sticks Around for Trout Opener

Check out Pete Thomas on the LA Times Outposts BlogBy Ed Zieralski, Union-Tribune
2:00 a.m. April 24, 2009

BISHOP, Calif. — Winter is trying to make a last stand in the Sierra on the eve of the annual Eastern Sierra trout opener.

Temperatures plummeted in the high country and the usual unstable spring weather is taking hold of the area, especially above 8,000 feet. The Weather Service issued high-wind warnings for late last night and this morning for Inyo and Mono Counties, with winds expected to hit up to 90 mph. The storm is expected to move through quickly, but the temperatures will only reach the high 40s at higher elevation lakes tomorrow, and there could be strong winds gusting to 30 mph.

Ice fishing definitely will be an option at lakes above 8,500 feet. More...