Most of Yosemite Valley is closed due to potentially perilous snowpack and flooding.
Signs of snowmelt-fueled deluge were everywhere in famed Yosemite Valley on Saturday as the normally placid Merced River surged over its banks, swamping roads, erasing swimming beaches, and turning meadows into murky sloughs.
Rock climbers Jon and Amy Holt of Bellingham, Wash., definitely had a different image in mind when they planned a spring vacation that included scaling the granite cliff of El Capitan, an iconic vertical rock formation on the north side of the valley.,” Amy Holt, 27, said, “because the trail back down is buried in snow.”
A few people stop by the patio at the 95-year-old Ahwahnee Hotel on Friday in Yosemite National Park. They relax briefly on the nearly empty patio. The hotel has been undergoing structural enhancements starting in January 2023 to complete seismic upgrades. A closure alert on the Ahwahnee Hotel’s website states that most of Yosemite Valley will be closed from April 28 to May 3 because of forecast flooding.Vacationers Mitch and Peggy Pingle, of Broomfield, Colo.
But the water is expected to begin receding next week, when the National Weather Service predicts that temperatures will dip into lows in the mid-30s. Beyond those ecological woes, adjusting the flow of visitors in a premier national park only a 5-hour drive from 18 million people in Southern California seemingly defies simple solutions even under the best conditions.
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