Tioga Road remains closed into May

Yosemite’s high-country road is still shut, and that changes a lot more than one scenic drive. Tioga Road — the Highway 120 route that crosses the park and reaches Tioga Pass on the east side — remained closed in early May 2026, with no opening date posted yet. That means no driving to Tuolumne Meadows, no east-side entry through the park, and no normal spring shortcut between the Central Valley and the Eastern Sierra. (nps.gov) ### What is actually closed? Tioga Road is the seasonal high-elevation road through Yosemite. When it is closed, the park’s west-side roads can still be open, but the trans-Sierra crossing is gone. Yosemite’s current conditions page shows Wawona Road, El Portal Road, Big Oak Flat Road, and Hetch Hetchy Road open, while Tioga Road remains closed for the season’s transition. (nps.gov) ### Where does the closure stop? The practical cutoff is Crane Flat on the park’s west side. Yosemite’s wilderness conditions page says Tioga Road is closed to vehicles at Crane Flat, near Tuolumne Grove. So even if you can get into Yosemite from the west, you cannot keep driving into the high country. (nps.gov) Tioga is not just a matter of plowing one lane and waving cars through. Crews have to clear snow, open culverts and ditches, repair potholes and winter damage, and replace signs. Yosemite’s plowing update says Tioga usually opens in late May or June, and that April and May weather can still change the sc(nps.gov)ather than a target date. (nps.gov) ### Does Yosemite know when it will open? Not yet. The park’s official plowing page says there is no estimated opening date. That is the key detail here — not “soon,” not “weather permitting this weekend,” just no posted estimate. For trip planning, that means you should treat any assumed opening as a guess until Yosemite changes the status page. (nps.gov)his unusual? Not really. Tioga is a high pass, and late openings are normal enough that Yosemite keeps a long historical page just for opening and closing dates. The park explicitly says predicting the opening is hard even in late spring because storms and snowmelt can still disrupt progress. Basically, May feels like spring in the Valley, but Tioga operates on mountain time. (nps.gov) ### What about the other Sierra passes? This is where the picture gets a little uneven. Sonora Pass on State Route 108 formally reopened on April 30, 2026. But Ebbetts Pass on State Route 4 was still listed closed for the winter in the latest Caltrans postings. So the broader Sierra is starting to open up, just not all at once. (dot.ca.gov)-traffic-advisory-sonora-04-29-2026)) ### What else inside Yosemite is affected? Several high-country campgrounds were still closed in the latest Yosemite conditions update, including Tuolumne Meadows, White Wolf, Yosemite Creek, Porcupine Flat, and Tamarack Flat. That matters because even after roads begin reopening, the classic(dot.ca.gov) thing. (nps.gov) ### So what should visitors do now? Plan Yosemite as a west-side trip unless the park says otherwise. Use Highway 140, Highway 41, or Highway 120 from the west to reach the Valley, and check Yosemite’s road status page right before leaving. The catch is that spring conditions can change faster than an itinerary does. (nps.gov)ll in shoulder-season limbo — plows are working, but the park is not promising an opening date yet. If your trip depends on crossing Yosemite from west to east, or reaching Tuolumne Meadows by car, it is still too early to count on it. (nps.gov)