Highway 180 Expected, and Possibly Mineral King Road, to Remain Closed in 2023

[maiathebee]

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[treks]

I have a permit out of Bubbs for 8/25-28 and it hasn't been cancelled at this point. Not sure what that means though. Reserved a permit out of Baxter as a backup.

Looking at the maps, 14S11 terminates and has a path that connects to end of Cedar Grove. Where it breaks into off road @ Horse Coral Meadow, the distance is about 14mi. You can also take a route from Generals Highway but that is 22mi. Obviously double check this and maps and terrain can change (especially with the weather recently).

FWIW here is the math taking Rae Lakes from the east side using Baxter where permits are still available at the time of post. 11mi out of Baxter, 38mi on the loop and 7.6mi into Onion Valley.

[maverick]

SEKI NP:

REOPENING UPDATES
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks personnel continue to make progress with snow clearing, damage repairs, and all the various tasks associated with recovering from a historic winter season. Memorial Day weekend is the usual kick-off to summer in the parks, but unfortunately this year, access to the world’s largest tree (by volume) and the surrounding Giant Forest and Lodgepole area will not be open in time.
Based on road repair assessments and snow clearing that still needs to happen, with only a couple weeks left before the holiday weekend, the difficult decision was made to postpone the reopening to this area to sometime between June 2 and June 9.
Current status and projected reopening timeframes as of May 11:


SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK
The Foothills area between the Sequoia entrance station and Hospital Rock is CURRENTLY OPEN. This area provides access to lower elevation camping, trails, wildflowers, wilderness, rivers, and more. No access to giant sequoias.
The Giant Forest/Wolverton/Lodgepole/Wuksachi Area is CURRENTLY CLOSED. This area provides access to giant sequoias, the General Sherman Tree, camping, lodging, wilderness, Moro Rock, Tunnel Log, and more.
Estimated reopening via Highway 180 through the Kings Canyon entrance station is now June 2 – June 9.
Estimated reopening via Highway 198 through the Sequoia entrance station is now July 1.


Crystal Cave is CLOSED FOR 2023.
Due to significant road damage along Crystal Cave Road.


Mineral King is CURRENTLY CLOSED.
Due to severe road damage along the Mineral King Road both inside and outside the park boundary, no vehicular public access is anticipated before August, and likely to be later. Other types of access will be assessed in June after Tulare County completes temporary repair work and park personnel can go in and assess damage within the park boundary.


KINGS CANYON NATIONAL PARK
Grant Grove is CURRENTLY OPEN. This area provides access to giant sequoias, the General Grant Tree, winter snowplay, camping, lodging, restaurant, trails, and more.
Cedar Grove is CURRENTLY CLOSED.
Due to severe road damage along the Highway 180 corridor, outside the park, between Grant Grove and Cedar Grove, Caltrans does not expect repairs to be completed before the end of the summer season. This means public access is not expected into the Cedar Grove area of Kings Canyon National Park for the 2023 summer season.

We encourage visitors to explore areas that are open this upcoming holiday weekend.
For trip-planning information and the most current park conditions, we urge visitors to visit our website at nps.gov/SEKI. Updates to the reopening schedule are made on the Current Conditions web page weekly on Thursday afternoons.

[nilloc29]

There are two highway bridges in Kings Canyon that were scheduled for replacement this year. I hope they can complete that in the late summer or fall to avoid disruptions in 2024.

[JosiahSpurr]

Yesterday, I hiked to Boyden Cavern and a half-mile beyond in the direction of Road's End. There are five (5) breaks in Highway CA-180 that will require Caltrans to do major repairs (and, thousands of rocks & boulders scattered on the highway wherever there are road cuts).

Before the hike, someone at Grants Grove said, due to the fact that so few people drive down 180 beyond Hume Lake & so many other damaged highways in California that see far, far great motor vehicle traffic, repairs to 180 are way down near the bottom of Caltrans's priority list. This, along with the following observations, leads me to predict that Highway 180 won't open until 2025 (two years from now).

1 of 5. First of two of these: the ground supporting the road collapsed, taking with it a chunk of one of the lanes. The collapse barely affected the yellow center line, just a foot or two of yellow line went down.

2 of 5. See above, second of two. Oddly enough, both collapses looked the same. Just a chunk of yellow line was affected.

3 of 5. The highway is gone. About 75 feet of highway went crashing down towards the Kings River. I feel they will need to build a bridge at this location. This location is just beyond (a mile?) Ten Mile Creek, which is a wide, big water tributary that is relatively flat with lots of beautiful exposed granite. Where the road disappeared is at the bottom of a huge waterfall. I'm pretty sure it's Redwood Creek (the topo countour lines are jammed together above 180 where the creek falls vertically straight down). Huge, as in tall, several hundred feet tall and almost vertical (a lot less water compared with Ten Mile). Here's what happened.

Other factors may alter this analysis. Above the falls was a forest fire. Combined with heavy rain & snowmelt, a lot of silt, soil & dead trees went whooshing down the waterfall. The culvert became fully clogged, or it became partially clogged and couldn't handle the water flow. A lake formed. A lake! Or pond, the water level rose and reached the road. The water began flowing over the highway (road). As it flowed, blackish silt / sand began accumulating in horizontal layers. It was like walking over a flat beach along one edge of the "pit.". I dug a hole, stuck my left ear in it, and got my eyeball level with the surface. I looked in the direction of where the road used to be. The line was slightly above where the road used to be. Therefore, the lake (or the soup) was pressed against the soil under the road for a while. The soil became more saturated. The pressure from the soupy lake turned the road into a dam, and the dam broke! It was so catastrophic that there's not much left to do a fill that would support a new road. I predict a bridge will be built. There's a photo of the damage at the visitor's center, but unlike all the other ones, there's no caption.

4 of 5: Boulder slide. Massive. The road is covered by big boulders. The pile is maybe 30 feet high by 100 feet. Caltrans has it's hands full with this one, like pick up sticks. Unless they can lift (air?) boulders straight up off the pile, moving one could cause others to fall, or could re-trigger the whole mess into a continuation of downward descent towards the Kings.

5 of 5. Mud slide. The amount of material that fell exceeds the amount of the previous 4 combined. It was like hiking over a hill. Looking up, the upper edge of the slide could be seen where the material pulled away from the mountain. About 250 feet up! by 100 feet wide. I heard about a mudslide that happened last October. In fact, there were four-foot sticker bushes growing on top of the slide yesterday.

Needless to say, the S. Fork Kings River was truly a sight to behold, and close-up, too. 100% whitewater (or, white water sp?). Flowing vanilla and olive ice cream. It was a few feet below the Boyden bridge. The river would hit the center concrete pillar and crash upwards, to the level of the green eye-beams. I would like to give thanks to Phil Arnot for writing "High Sierra" who has done a superlative job of telling us about the forces of Nature to be discovered by those willing to trek just a bit further under conditions that others are afraid, of. *

[JosiahSpurr]

Two last items:

1. The road repair work that Caltrans will be doing will have to be done sequentially. This lengthens the time Highway 180 will be closed. Five sections to repair, see above.

2. I would be happy to show others my "route." In fact, for the next year or two, the highway will be a trail between Road's End and the road break that's up next for repair, working West to East. *

[c9h13no3]

Yesterday, I hiked to Boyden Cavern and a half-mile beyond in the direction of Road's End.

Think it is bikeable? Not that I'd want to climb that 4000' back up the highway on a bike with a heavy pack on...

[Lenier]

I wonder if anyone will attempt to get down there using the trail from the Mitchell Mountain area down into the valley.

[maverick]

Do you have any photo's? I appreciate the words, but I'm a visual person.

[JosiahSpurr]

Yesterday, I hiked to Boyden Cavern and a half-mile beyond in the direction of Road's End.

Think it is bikeable? Not that I'd want to climb that 4000' back up the highway on a bike with a heavy pack on...

Yes, however, it would be really difficult to carry anything for about 50 feet along a very steep hill on the far right side of the big, big washout ("dam"). There's no vegetation to hold onto. The fall risk isn't too bad, just a short ways down some dirt onto a mud flats. Then carrying everything over the boulders, then a third portage over the mudslide. It'd be a lot of work. *