Sierra Tourism Snowed Under

Late spring storms in the Sierra Nevada have snowed under many Californians’ plans for Memorial Day weekend, burying high country campgrounds and threatening to slash business on what is typically one of the biggest tourist days of the year.

Yosemite National Park spokesman Scott Gediman said thick snowpacks and avalanche dangers will keep Tioga Road, Glacier Point Road, Tuolumne Meadows and the campgrounds near these areas closed until June 6. Tioga Pass is one of the major gateways to the national park.

The last time Yosemite failed to clear Tioga Road by Memorial Day was 1998, when the park opened it July 1, Gediman said. About 45,000 people visit Yosemite over Memorial Day weekend, 15% of them entering through the gate at Tioga Pass.

“We try to get Tioga Road open by Memorial Day, but we have to think about the safety of the folks who have to clear the snow up there,” Gediman said.

“What this means is, there’s much less camping in the park, and Yosemite Valley will get much more crowded,” he said. He still encourages people to visit, but advises them to use public transportation around the park.

Other high Sierra passes had all opened by Thursday. But many soggy or snow-covered campgrounds in the Stanislaus National Forest, Inyo National Forest, and Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks will remain closed for Memorial Day weekend.

Snow melting in the spring sun has also made other activities such as boating and swimming very dangerous, forest and park officials said.

“Conditions have our rivers running swift, cold and wild,” said Stanislaus National Forest spokesman Pat Kaunert. “While they are an awesome spectacle to behold, we ask folks to step back from shorelines and slippery areas.”

For small businesses that depend upon Memorial Day traffic, the late spring snows are disastrous.

“When the pass opens, it’s like instant spring,” said Craig Roecker, a member of the Mono Lake Committee, which sponsors a visitors center in Lee Vining. “The dollar-shaped flowers start blooming.”

“It’s like someone sends out a global e-mail to the Bay Area when the roads open,” said Ron Cohen, owner of the Tioga Pass Resort, a mile from Yosemite’s eastern gate. “And, literally, in the time it takes to drive from the west side to here, it’s packed the day they open the road. Suddenly there’s a line.”

Cohen estimates he will lose $25,000 this weekend because the Tioga Road is closed.

Memorial Day usually supplies “a big infusion of cash that gets us through to when business really starts, near the end of June,” he said.

Jane Domaille, one of the owners of the Tioga Gas Mart at the intersection of Tioga Road and California 395, estimates she will see only a fifth as much business as she saw last year over Memorial Day weekend. “It’s a weekend I can’t make up,” she said. “Now we have to wait until July 4. I have 25 employees trained according to when the pass might open, so I still have the same overhead.”

She said about 50 people a day stop in to ask why the road is closed. “I have to tell them to go around, and I have an awful lot of people saying they have to be in San Francisco to fly out, so they cancel and don’t go to the park,” Domaille said.

Ski resorts, however, are celebrating the extended winter. For the first time in years, Kirkwood and Heavenly Ski Resorts, both of which closed April 27, have reopened for Memorial Day weekend.

“In Tahoe, people ski into the backcountry in May and into early June, after the resorts have closed,” said a spokeswoman for Heavenly, Molly Cuffe. “But the fact that the snow has stayed this good is rare.”

Kirkwood spokeswoman Tracy Miller said the resort couldn’t let the sunny skies and “corn snow” go to waste. “Skiing through it is like slicing through butter,” she said. However, she added, late snows will probably push back the opening of the mountain biking season to the end of June.

Businesses in Mammoth Lakes also appreciate the extension of the skiing season, with plenty of traffic from Southern California, said Mark Bellinger, director of the Mammoth Lakes Visitors Bureau.

“But we are a little worried we might lose a couple of weeks of traffic” from the west side of the Sierra through the Tioga Pass, he said. “When the pass opens, we get the best of both worlds.”