Limited Regions of Yosemite to Reopen

Flood-ravaged Yosemite National Park plans to open a corner of its forested southern reaches today to hikers, skiers and snowshoers, but Yosemite Valley will remain closed until March.

Visitors will be allowed to enter the park’s south entrance near Wawona on California 41 north of Oakhurst, but they will not be able to reach the valley or the Badger Pass ski area.

“Of all areas in the park, the Wawona area was the least affected,” park spokesman Scott Gediman said. “There was a problem with the water system in Wawona and that has been fixed, and some minor road damage on Highway 41 has been repaired.”

A temporary visitors center will be set up at Hill’s Studio, a former photographic workshop near the Wawona Hotel. Park rangers will be on hand to direct visitors along a snow-packed road to the nearby Mariposa Grove, a popular cluster of giant sequoia trees.

Available services in Wawona will include the campground, store, gas station, market and post office, park officials said. The Wawona Hotel and restaurant will remain closed.

Park officials said that because of recent snowfall, access to Mariposa Grove will be by skis or snowshoes. Visitors will be able to explore the countryside around the grove but will be told not to ski to Yosemite Valley, which remains closed because of flood damage, Gediman said.

Yosemite’s main cross-country skiing facilities are at Badger Pass, not far from Wawona, and park officials said they hope to be able to resume operations there soon.

Officials said accomplished cross-country skiers also will be allowed to make the trek into Tuolumne Meadows from the park’s eastern boundary on Tioga Pass Road, which is closed to traffic in the winter.

Back-country rangers will be on duty at Tuolumne Meadows. But park officials cautioned that only accomplished skiers should attempt the journey, which is several miles long and traverses areas prone to avalanches.

People who want to visit the newly reopened areas will not have to pay the higher entry fees that recently took effect. Instead of charging $20 per car, the park will charge the old $5 fee until more areas of the park are open, officials said.

Just last week, National Park Service officials announced that Yosemite would not be open before March. Yosemite Valley, site of the vast majority of visitor accommodations, is still not scheduled to open any sooner.

Officials say recent snowstorms have made it impossible to speed up repairs of washed-out roads, broken sewer lines and damaged buildings.

Although the park’s partial reopening in semi-wilderness areas is not likely to spark a stampede back to Yosemite, it was good news to the surrounding communities that are economically dependent on Yosemite. This is the second prolonged park shutdown in just over a year.

In December 1995, a budget stalemate between Congress and the White House led to a three-week shutdown of national parks, including Yosemite.

The 1995 closure cost Mariposa County, which borders Yosemite, an estimated $10,000 a day in revenues, mostly in lost motel bed taxes.

“This shutdown will eclipse last year’s losses,” said Steve Hayes, director of the Mariposa County Visitors Bureau.

He said the bulk of the county’s business revenue comes from Yosemite visitors who eat and stay in the area.

Hayes called the park’s partial reopening an encouraging sign, and said that the county was working with park officials to speed the reopening of other facilities, such as the Badger Pass ski area.

Reopening Badger Pass is partly dependent on the condition of the access road, which officials have not been able to fully assess because of heavy snowfall. The park must also find temporary housing for the 80 to 100 Badger Pass employees who were flooded out of their homes in the valley.

“Hoteliers along Highway 41 have offered to billet employees at discounted rates,” Hayes said. “It’s just one example of how people in the community and in the park are working together to get the park up and running again.”