Snow Shuts Tioga Road Today: Your Guide to Yosemite's Highest Drive

Introduction: The Sierra's Highest Road Meets Its First Storm

Every fall, Tioga Road plays the same game of chicken with winter — and today, winter wins the first round. The National Park Service announced on October 20 that Tioga Road, the Highway 120 crossing through Yosemite National Park, will close at 5 p.m. today, Wednesday, October 21, because of forecast snow. There is no reopening time. The direct link between Yosemite Valley and the eastern Sierra — Lee Vining, Mono Lake, Mammoth Lakes, and Highway 395 — is cut until crews can judge what the storm left behind.

At 9,943 feet, Tioga Pass is the highest highway pass in California, and the 62-mile drive from Crane Flat to the east entrance is widely considered the finest high-country drive in the state. Here's what happened, what else this storm is shutting, and how to drive it properly when the gates open again.

What Happened: One Storm, Three Passes Closed

The closure was announced a day ahead, on October 20, as forecasters locked onto an early-season storm aimed at the Sierra crest. The National Weather Service in Hanford put Yosemite under a winter weather advisory from Wednesday morning through Thursday morning, noting an 80 percent chance of four inches or more of snow along Tioga Pass and Highway 120. The Reno office issued its own advisory for Mono County above 8,000 feet — Lee Vining, Mammoth Lakes, Bridgeport, and Coleville — calling for four to eight inches of snow, up to ten inches on the highest peaks, and gusts as high as 40 mph.

Tioga is not closing alone. Caltrans announced that State Route 108 over Sonora Pass and State Route 120 at Tioga Pass close on Wednesday, October 21, with Sonora Pass shutting at 8 a.m. and Tioga closing at the Lee Vining gate at 5 p.m. Highway 4 over Ebbetts Pass is closing the same morning. Sonora and Ebbetts will stay in intermittent closure until crews reassess them, and Tioga will be checked for damage and debris before anyone sets a reopening time. This is a temporary storm closure, not yet the seasonal one — but if enough snow stacks up, temporary can become final until spring.

Two details make it bite harder. Overnight parking has already been banned on Tioga Road since October 15 — the park's vehicle restrictions page spells out that no vehicle can be left overnight at Tioga trailheads, turnouts, or lots until spring, so cars are not stranded on a road that can close and stay closed. Backpacking the high country right now? You cannot finish to a parked car on Tioga.

What stays open matters just as much. Yosemite itself is not closed: Yosemite Valley remains reachable year-round via El Portal Road (Highway 140), Wawona Road (Highway 41), and Big Oak Flat Road (Highway 120 from the west), weather permitting. Tioga's sister high road is still an option — Glacier Point Road reopened earlier this month. Before any Yosemite drive this week, check the park's current conditions page or call 209-372-0200 (press 1, then 1), and check Caltrans QuickMap for chain controls outside the park.

The Drive: Crane Flat to Tioga Pass, 62 Miles

When it is open, this is the drive to build a Yosemite trip around. From Crane Flat, the road climbs through forest, passes the Tuolumne Grove of giant sequoias, and breaks into a landscape nothing like the Valley: polished granite, alpine lakes, broad meadows, peaks in every direction. The crossing takes about 90 minutes without stops — a meaningless number, because the stops are the point. Allow half a day.

Don't-miss stops, west to east:

• Tuolumne Grove — a walk through giant sequoias, far quieter than Mariposa Grove, right off the road near Crane Flat.
• Olmsted Point — the surprise masterpiece. A short path over polished granite opens to Half Dome from the back side, with Tenaya Canyon falling away below.
• Tenaya Lake — a deep-blue alpine lake at 8,150 feet, ringed by granite domes, with a sandy beach on its eastern shore. The water is bracingly cold even in midsummer.
• Tuolumne Meadows — at 8,600 feet, one of the largest high-elevation meadows in the Sierra Nevada, threaded by the Tuolumne River and watched over by Lembert Dome — climb its slab for the full survey.
• Tioga Pass (9,943 ft) — the summit and east entrance, with Mount Dana towering alongside. Stop, feel the thin air, and take the elevation photo.
• Tioga and Ellery Lakes to Lee Vining — the road threads two jewel-box lakes, then plunges down Lee Vining Canyon to Mono Lake's tufa towers — one of the great descents in California driving.

Practical Tips: Driving It Right

1. Treat every fall day on Tioga as borrowed time. The road typically opens in late May or June and closes for the season with the first lasting snow, usually in October or November. A storm closure can reopen in days — or not at all. Check conditions the morning you go.
2. Know your alternatives before you need them. With Tioga, Sonora, and Ebbetts all shut by the same storm, there is no quick hop to the eastern Sierra. Remaining crossings can be hours apart.
3. Carry chains and know the rules. Under R2 chain control, four-wheel and all-wheel drive vehicles still need snow-tread tires on all four wheels and must carry traction devices; under R3, every vehicle needs chains. Practice fitting them at home — not in falling snow at 9,000 feet.
4. Respect the overnight parking ban. From October 15 until spring, leaving a car overnight anywhere along Tioga Road is prohibited. Backpackers need a pickup, a shuttle, or an earlier exit — not a trailhead gamble.
5. Fuel and services are thin up high. There is no gas along most of the route, cell coverage is spotty, and weather at the pass can be a season ahead of the Valley floor. Top off in Groveland, Lee Vining, or the Valley, and pack layers and water.

When to Go

Tioga Road's season is short and glorious: roughly late May or June through October or November, entirely at the weather's discretion. Midsummer brings wildflowers to Tuolumne Meadows and the warmest odds for a Tenaya Lake swim. Fall is the connoisseur's pick — thin crowds, golden light, cold clear mornings — with the standing risk on display today: the season can end on a single forecast. If this closure reopens, the days right after could be the finest of the year, fresh snow on the domes and almost nobody around. If it does not, the next window is spring, when plow crews carve the road back out of the snowpack.

The Bottom Line

A closed Tioga Road is California's clearest reminder that its best drives are privileges, not guarantees. Today the privilege is paused: one early storm, three high passes shut, and the eastern Sierra on the far side of a locked gate. Keep an eye on the conditions page, keep the chains in the trunk, and be ready the moment the road comes back. And if your fall plans need a coastal Plan B, Highway 1 through Big Sur is open end to end right now — the opposite end of California, and the opposite kind of beautiful.