See crews take on a wall of snow blocking Tioga Pass across Sierra. ‘It’s gonna be a while’
A new video shows Caltrans maintenance crews working this week to clear the incredibly high wall of snow blocking 9,943-foot-high Tioga Pass, the roadway across the Sierra Nevada that serves as the eastern entrance to Yosemite National Park.
“It’s Gonna Be A WHILE” before Tioga Pass opens this spring, wrote SnowBrains on its Instagram page that provides snow, ski and snowboard information.
The video shows snow so deep on the Highway 120 pass near Lee Vining and Mono Lake that a tractor on top of a high drift has to push snow down to a snowblower to clear. The wall of snow dwarfs the machinery.
“We’ve actually never seen this technique before,” SnowBrains wrote.
That’s because the snow depth in the Sierra is over 241% of average, according to the Department of Water Resources.
“The record breaking winter of 22/23 may be over, but clean-up from the storms continues across Eastern Kern, Inyo, and Mono counties,” Caltrans District 9 wrote on its Instagram page. “We have snow removal and emergency repairs in the work.”
The progress can be tracked on the new Caltrans District 9 Snow Removal & Emergency Repairs web page.
“Maintenance Crews from Lee Vining have started snow clearing operations on State Route 120 W,” according to an update from April 28. “The crew has managed to clear the first major snow drift from the road and has progressed approximately 3/10 of a mile up the highway.”
