[NormsRevenge]

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)

[NormsRevenge]

This was May 26th..

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

[mylife]

Crikey!

[BigBobber]

That's a monster slide. Some people from my office are working on it.

[mylife]

Bush's fault?
Global warming?

[capt. norm]

Scared me. At first glance I though something may have happened to this guy:

[pabianice]

F&^%$#g global warming...

[fso301]

preventing crews from removing an estimated 250-300 tons of debris

A slide L600' x W600' x D300' weights a lot more than 250-300 tons.

[keat]

Every year they run articles in the paper about Yosemite being "damaged" by rock slides and the millions of dollars that will be required to "repair" it.

Question: Didn't rock slides create Yosemite?

I heard on the radio this AM that the county was going to declare a disaster area and request federal aid.

There are at least 4 other main highways into the park.

Everything is a disaster area now.

[PA Engineer]

but rocks continued to fall Thursday, preventing crews from removing an estimated 250-300 tons of debris

Attention occupation media. This is more than 250-300 tons. I'm sure the writer thought this was a big number after making it up.

[calcowgirl]

[Chinito]

The photos above are kinda misleading. I was thinking that they should just get a couple of guys with shovels and a pickup and just clean it up. I found out this was not the case. I'm about 5 miles away from the slide (as the crow flies) and a ranger friend showed me this picture. You can see that the slide actually starts just below the top of the mountain. If you look real carefully, you can see the high voltage lines across the face of this thing. If this thing lets go, the Merced River will become the Merced Reservoir. This photo was taken the first week of May, when they thought they could open the road to traffic. For a sense of scale, That's an 18 wheeler at the very bottom with a flatbed loaded with heavy earth moving equipment.

BTW, Tioga Pass is still closed and probably will be until about the 4th of July. Hwy 108 (Sonora Pass) is open, though.

Mariposa Co. S.O. has current photos of the slide at this link.

[ladyinred]

I happen to live on the other main road to Yosemite, and it isn't closed!