Posted on 06/02/2006 12:05:54 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
EL PORTAL, Calif. - The main road to Yosemite National Park was closed after a rock slide buried it under 300 feet of debris and threatened to knock out electricity to the park, officials said.
No one was injured in the slide about 12 miles west of the park on Highway 140, but rocks continued to fall Thursday, preventing crews from removing an estimated 250-300 tons of debris, fire officials said. It was not clear when the road would reopen.
"It looks like the mountain moved right over the road," said Carrie Smith of the California Highway Patrol, who reviewed pictures of the slide. "It looks like there should be a tunnel there, but there's not."
The slide began as a trickle of rocks April 29 and forced sporadic road closures last month. The road reopened last week, but on Monday the intensity of the slide increased.
The slide, which is 600 feet long, 600 feet wide and 300 feet deep, threatened to topple two power line towers carrying 72,000 volts of electricity to the town of El Portal and the park, said Mariposa County Fire Chief Blaine Shultz.
The power lines are the only source of power to the small community and the park, Shultz said.
Motorists were advised to use alternate routes into the park. Two routes from the south and the north were still open.
An autumn sunsets drapes El Capitan and the Yosemite valley with warm light in Yosemite National Park in this Oct. 21, 1997 file photo. Visitors can still find good deals in the national parks this summer, despite tight budgets and rising fees. (AP Photo/Ben Margot, File)
Boulders smash through a mesh retaining wall on May 26. Since then, debris has covered Highway 140, closing it indefinitely. Merced Sun-Star photo by Marci Stenberg
Crikey!
That's a monster slide. Some people from my office are working on it.
Bush's fault?
Global warming?
With Yosemite falls in the background, park ranger Vickie Mates, left, and Yosemite Post Master Bill Carroll admire a new stamp unveiled Saturday, May 27, 2006, at the Yosemite Valley Post Office at Yosemite National Park, Calif. The news stamp, part of the 'Wonders of America: Land of Superlatives', is a 40-stamp set showing colorful drawings of such landmarks as Yosemite Falls, the tallest waterfall in North America, the Rocky Mountains, the country's longest mountain chain, and Death Valley, one of the hottest places on earth. (AP Photo/Al Golub)
Looks like we're gonna need a bigger mesh.
With that great a volume of material covering the road, is there certainty that no vehicles have been trapped in there?
January 1997
there was one in 98 and 2000 as well
I was trying to find some postable pics,
KTVU.com has some to look at but we can't post stuff from ibsys.com
Boulder makes Yosemite roadless...Liberals cheer!
Bush hates Yosemite
Thanks for the pic and reminder.
. . . and that part of the world could hardly be LESS stable.
( . . . we live on solid granite, but even here there were effects felt from the New Madrid Quake . . . )
F&^%$#g global warming...
A slide L600' x W600' x D300' weights a lot more than 250-300 tons.
That sucks for all the park employees who live in El Portal. It's a long drive the other way around to get to work.
No kidding.
More like 250-300 thousand tons
Or 250-300 million pounds.
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