Engineers assess Yosemite rockslide damage

Engineers today will begin assessing the damage caused by a Sunday rockslide on the road connecting Tuolumne County communities to Yosemite Valley, according to park officials.

Big Oak Flat Road, a continuation of Highway 120, has been closed between Foresta Road and the El Portal Road junction since late Sunday night when a boulder the size of a two-story house smashed a 40-foot gap in the road. The closure makes Yosemite Valley — the most-touristed part of Yosemite National Park — accessible only through the Highway 140 and Highway 41 entrances in Mariposa County.

“We’re hoping we can make an announcement later this week on what the diagnosis is and an estimate on how long it will take to fix this,” said park spokeswoman Kari Cobb.

    Park officials earlier said the closure could last anywhere from a couple weeks to a couple months, which concerns merchants along Highway 120, in southern Tuolumne County, who rely on Yosemite-bound traffic for income.

    Tuolumne County Supervisor John Gray, of District 4, which includes communities near Yosemite along the Highway 120 corridor, echoed the sentiments of many business owners in the days following the road’s closure.
    “What happened needs to be taken care of quickly,” he said. “Not having access is just devastating to the businesses along the corridor.”

    Gray said tourism is especially important along the corridor because the relatively small populations in communities such as Groveland and Big Oak Flat make it difficult to sustain a business off local traffic alone.
    The loss of sales-tax revenue, should the closure continue through the beginning of the tourist season in March, could have greater implications for the county, Gray said.

    “It not only hurts the businesses, but it also hurts the county,” he said.

    Gray spent decades as the superintendent for maintenance operations at Pine Mountain Lake and was in charge of many road maintenance projects during his tenure.    

He said, judging pictures of the damage, it appears the majority of the hillside the road sits on is intact, but a portion is damaged under the eastbound lane.    

In general road construction, crews would probably carve out some of the mountain on the other side and move the road in some rather than reconstructing the underlying earth, Gray said. This method is “expensive and not really fast,” according to Gray.    

“I want to be optimistic, but it may take awhile,” he said.    

Gray said he has faith the park will get the road re-opened as soon as possible.    

“We have a good relationship with the park and I assume they understand the importance of having it open,” he said.