QuoteThe historic Pioneer Cabin Tree, a former "drive-through" giant sequoia in Calaveras Big Trees State Park in Calaveras County, was felled in California's weekend storms.
The tree was hollowed out in the 1880s to allow tourists to pass through it, and even allowed cars, but more recently has hosted only hikers. It was part of the "Big Trees Trail" at the state park.
More article and lots of pictures at:
http://www.seattlepi.com/bayarea/article/Historic-Pioneer-Cabin-Tree-toppled-in-California-10844206.php
Yosemite Valley was actually evacuated last night, last I heard the Merced River was at 12 feet which was starting to cause floods. Been a wild week with all this water up in the Sierras.
In northern Nevada, water took a nice gouge out of NV 446 near Pyramid Lake.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1253374721366621 (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1253374721366621)
Also, a bridge in Lockwood, east of Reno, has succumbed.
https://twitter.com/StoreyCounty/status/818615636184047616
What a shame! There goes one of the things I wanted to do as a roadgeek :(
Dang.
I wonder, did the fact this tree was hollowed out cause it to not be able to withstand this storm, or would it have fallen either way. Interesting question after it stood that way for 130 years.
Quote from: Henry on January 12, 2017, 10:14:12 AM
What a shame! There goes one of the things I wanted to do as a roadgeek :(
Don't get too worked up. It's not as if this was the only drive-through tree. There have been others in the past which have fallen, and other drive-through redwoods still exist.
What was perhaps the most famous of these trees fell over nearly 50 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wawona_Tree
Quote from: Henry on January 12, 2017, 10:14:12 AM
What a shame! There goes one of the things I wanted to do as a roadgeek :(
There's a click-through list of other drive-through and walk-through trees at
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Historic-Pioneer-Cabin-Tree-toppled-in-California-10844206.php#photo-12161498
But the trend is definitely against making more of these trees, so cross it off your bucket list while you can.
It's hard to say how much hollowing the tree shortens its life. Sequoias have shallow root systems for their size, so living to the extreme age and size some of them achieve is partly a matter of growing in a spot that's somewhat sheltered from the wind.
Word on the news this morning is that the snow pack in the Sierras is near 200% of where it is usually is for this time of year. Supposedly that might have brought a lot of the northern part of the state out of the drought. Might be nice to have at least one year where people aren't complaining about no water in the reservoirs because of no rain....then me having to explain that most of the water comes from snow pack. I'm sure regardless of what happens some scientist will be on the news every week talking about aquifer levels. Regardless Glacier Point ought to be one hell of a site this year when it opens.
Saw on the news this morning that Loch Lomond - Santa Cruz's main reservoir - is at 100℅ and San Luis is just below its historic average.
Quote from: coatimundi on January 13, 2017, 10:25:50 AM
Saw on the news this morning that Loch Lomond - Santa Cruz's main reservoir - is at 100℅ and San Luis is just below its historic average.
...and the Northeast is now the one trapped in a drought:
http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/
Quote from: Rothman on January 13, 2017, 01:21:58 PM
Quote from: coatimundi on January 13, 2017, 10:25:50 AM
Saw on the news this morning that Loch Lomond - Santa Cruz's main reservoir - is at 100℅ and San Luis is just below its historic average.
...and the Northeast is now the one trapped in a drought:
http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/
In my limited experience monitoring weather across the country, it does seem like there's rarely a weather pattern that has no drought across the entire nation. Drought does seem to plague certain locations more than others, but there always seems to be at least one region in the U.S. that is within a drought at any given time.
Here's a wikipedia reference on this topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droughts_in_the_United_States
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on January 13, 2017, 09:17:58 AM
Word on the news this morning is that the snow pack in the Sierras is near 200% of where it is usually is for this time of year. Supposedly that might have brought a lot of the northern part of the state out of the drought. Might be nice to have at least one year where people aren't complaining about no water in the reservoirs because of no rain....then me having to explain that most of the water comes from snow pack. I'm sure regardless of what happens some scientist will be on the news every week talking about aquifer levels. Regardless Glacier Point ought to be one hell of a site this year when it opens.
Fully-filled reservoirs may not even be a thing ever again, simply because we understand now they aren't ideal. The concept of "reverse wells" that directly recharge groundwater and aquifers will probably be more commonplace in the future.
Quote from: Quillz on January 22, 2017, 10:44:12 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on January 13, 2017, 09:17:58 AM
Word on the news this morning is that the snow pack in the Sierras is near 200% of where it is usually is for this time of year. Supposedly that might have brought a lot of the northern part of the state out of the drought. Might be nice to have at least one year where people aren't complaining about no water in the reservoirs because of no rain....then me having to explain that most of the water comes from snow pack. I'm sure regardless of what happens some scientist will be on the news every week talking about aquifer levels. Regardless Glacier Point ought to be one hell of a site this year when it opens.
Fully-filled reservoirs may not even be a thing ever again, simply because we understand now they aren't ideal. The concept of "reverse wells" that directly recharge groundwater and aquifers will probably be more commonplace in the future.
Well what I always found interesting was the general public perception here in California and really the west coast in general in regards to reservoir level somehow be an indicator of "environmental" health in arid regions. I love to explain to people the saga of poor old Tulare Lake whenever I hear someone complain about water. Blocking the Kings, Tule, Kaweah, and Kern River with irrigation diversion which includes reservoirs essentially killed off a almost 700 square mile inland lake. It is fairly amusing to ponder over how readily pretty much everyone was in the early 20th century to kill off a lake of that size for "progress." There is no way that something like that would happen in the post-EPA days. I guess that it is just amusing to see people ask for "more water storage" on side of the road signage all over San Joaquin Valley like there is some secret watershed in the Sierras that has been kept secret all these years. :rolleyes:
Anyways, speaking of reservoirs....San Luis was looking a lot more full today after all the storms:
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2F90_zpsrqud0r7f.jpg&hash=d7fd2dad6862579828333e2c6e9ca4d9b234a3e2)
The Park Service just posted this on Youtube:
https://www.gov.ca.gov/news.php?id=19668
Quote
The emergency proclamations issued due to January and December storms - for the counties of Alameda, Alpine, Butte, Calaveras, Contra Costa, El Dorado, Fresno, Humboldt, Inyo, Kern, Kings, Lake, Lassen, Los Angeles, Madera, Marin, Mendocino, Merced, Modoc, Monterey, Napa, Nevada, Orange, Placer, Plumas, Sacramento, San Benito, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Francisco, San Luis Obispo, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Shasta, Sierra, Siskiyou, Solano, Sonoma, Stanislaus, Sutter, Tehama, Trinity, Tulare, Tuolumne, Ventura, Yolo, Yuba and Del Norte - direct Caltrans to formally request immediate assistance through the Federal Highway Administration's Emergency Relief Program. The proclamations also direct the Office of Emergency Services to provide assistance to local governments.
I think that Colusa, Glenn and Imperial are the only ones left off of that list.
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on January 24, 2017, 11:06:32 PM
The Park Service just posted this on Youtube:
Thanks for the link! Wow, some of those bridges are only a few inches above the water.
Quote from: kkt on January 25, 2017, 02:16:18 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on January 24, 2017, 11:06:32 PM
The Park Service just posted this on Youtube:
Thanks for the link! Wow, some of those bridges are only a few inches above the water.
Yeah if things stay status quo I might be heading up that way tomorrow. It would be cool to see the water level high in the Merced but it probably has withdrawn substantially since. There aren't any chain requirements in Yosemite Valley or on CA 140. 41 is up to R2 which really isn't something I want to deal with if I can avoid it.
Here are a couple of photos I took on Old 198 (Jackson Avenue) the other day when the Kings River was full:
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FIMG_3552_zpsqrnazcbl.jpg&hash=a0adb8c0ff49e39fd725f73da702a7decdce7a28)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FIMG_3553_zpsfcwpmk7e.jpg&hash=24b4017620361d9ef13ead36dc9b6fccf54d3da6)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1255.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fhh630%2FMadMaxRockatansky73%2FIMG_3555_zpstbxgqbsb.jpg&hash=8739401cbd2915b5797ffe5277ddd2332c0bb654)
Kind of interesting, I bet the river resembles what it probably looked like before Pine Flat Dam and when Tulare Lake was still around. Usually that river bed is dry as a bone and not a good 8-10 feet deep like that. I'm to understand that is all from water run-off into the river bed and not anything being released upstream at the dam.
Up here on the North Coast, every river seems near full capacity. The Mad River, Klamath River, Trinity River, all are very wide and moving fast. I don't live up here (not yet, anyway) so I don't know if this is normal or not. But several highways are closed or have winter weather advisories in effect (CA-299 is closed, CA-36 requires chains). I mentioned that US-101 near Crescent City is in bad shape right now, a lot of storm damage.
Road closures have been far too numerous to list, but it's notable that I-80 and US-50 have both been closed through the Sierra today due to mud and rock slides (can use CA-20 through Grass Valley to detour around the I-80 closure, but that two-lane road would be very slow with the traffic). In the US-50 slide, somebody in a red Jeep Wrangler was driving by at a most unfortunate time:
https://www.facebook.com/CHPPlacerville/posts/1910857515814442 (https://www.facebook.com/CHPPlacerville/posts/1910857515814442)
Highway 17 has closed two separate times this year, including earlier this week. That is a major drag for people, since that's essentially the only way to go between Santa Cruz and San Jose.
I noticed SR 59 is shut down south of Merced and has been for a few days. Flooding. The inland sea strikes back...
And the 101/37 interchange seems to have been completely shut down for at least a month now, detouring people through Novato.
A lot of the other stuff seems to be pretty typical, just a little worse this year. I don't know that they're even trying to keep Highway 1 south of Big Sur open anymore until the rains stop completely.
Quote from: coatimundi on February 11, 2017, 12:03:45 AM
Highway 17 has closed two separate times this year, including earlier this week. That is a major drag for people, since that's essentially the only way to go between Santa Cruz and San Jose.
I noticed SR 59 is shut down south of Merced and has been for a few days. Flooding. The inland sea strikes back...
And the 101/37 interchange seems to have been completely shut down for at least a month now, detouring people through Novato.
A lot of the other stuff seems to be pretty typical, just a little worse this year. I don't know that they're even trying to keep Highway 1 south of Big Sur open anymore until the rains stop completely.
Did 59 actually even reopen at all? 269 was in a similar situation, although that was actually much closer to where Summit Lake and Tulare Lake were located. I was hoping maybe to see a huge puddle of water on the Tulare Lake bed when I went through Kettleman City...no such luck.
US 50 is still closed over the Sierras.
https://sacbee.relaymedia.com/amp/news/local/transportation/article132279379.html?_rmsrchost=sacbee.relaymedia.com
MOD NOTE: By request, posts in this thread about the Oroville Dam situation have been merged into a separate thread (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=19684.0) and moved to "Off Topic". –Roadfro
Quote from: roadfro on February 15, 2017, 03:17:54 AM
MOD NOTE: By request, posts in this thread about the Oroville Dam situation have been merged into a separate thread (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=19684.0) and moved to "Off Topic". –Roadfro
Dam...
Quote from: coatimundi on February 15, 2017, 11:14:59 AM
Quote from: roadfro on February 15, 2017, 03:17:54 AM
MOD NOTE: By request, posts in this thread about the Oroville Dam situation have been merged into a separate thread (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=19684.0) and moved to "Off Topic". –Roadfro
Dam...
I was really hoping CA 1 would be open through Big Sur today...but it would seem the closures are going to be ongoing until March. Hopefully it doesn't rain too much next week I'm heading to the Bay Area. The one lane segment of 35 is currently shut down between 17 and 9... :banghead:
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 15, 2017, 02:33:32 PM
I was really hoping CA 1 would be open through Big Sur today...but it would seem the closures are going to be ongoing until March. Hopefully it doesn't rain too much next week I'm heading to the Bay Area. The one lane segment of 35 is currently shut down between 17 and 9... :banghead:
They're predicting ~1" just tomorrow in Big Sur, with more on the way. That won't help anything as the ground is already saturated here. We got very little sunshine in between storms.
March is pretty optimistic for Highway 1. I'm guessing May.
35 is shut down. 9 is shut down. 152 is shut down. 17 is one lane in both directions. 41 is one lane in both directions. Not a good time to come to the coast (or the mountains, for that matter). Time for a party weekend in Modesto.
Quote from: coatimundi on February 15, 2017, 03:49:24 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on February 15, 2017, 02:33:32 PM
I was really hoping CA 1 would be open through Big Sur today...but it would seem the closures are going to be ongoing until March. Hopefully it doesn't rain too much next week I'm heading to the Bay Area. The one lane segment of 35 is currently shut down between 17 and 9... :banghead:
They're predicting ~1" just tomorrow in Big Sur, with more on the way. That won't help anything as the ground is already saturated here. We got very little sunshine in between storms.
March is pretty optimistic for Highway 1. I'm guessing May.
35 is shut down. 9 is shut down. 152 is shut down. 17 is one lane in both directions. 41 is one lane in both directions. Not a good time to come to the coast (or the mountains, for that matter). Time for a party weekend in Modesto.
Looks like there will be a window in the weather next Thursday/Friday on the preliminary forecast. Ideally I would like to try to clinch 35 if possibly but we'll see what happens. Really I have some work stuff to do in downtown San Francisco and I'll probably hit up some stuff north of the Golden Gate that I've been meaning to get to. Getting to Point Reyes will probably entail a creative solution given 1 north of the bridge is shut down for the next couple months, hopefully the Panoramic Highway holds up next week. Really I screwed up last year and didn't take the Challenger out to Big Sur, but then again I wasn't really chomping at the bit for another Nacimiento-Furgusson Road jaunt at the time. We'll see what happens, so far I've been able to do almost everything in between storms and land slides so far this year.
I envy all the great drives you get to take... I'm stuck in this job that involves being in place in the city, not driving around even the scenic rural drives we have here, let alone Calif.
Quote from: kkt on February 15, 2017, 04:19:39 PM
I envy all the great drives you get to take... I'm stuck in this job that involves being in place in the city, not driving around even the scenic rural drives we have here, let alone Calif.
There was actually a time where I drove about 80,000 miles a year and about 70,000 of it was for work. At the time I had a work area that included; all of Arizona, all of New Mexico, Clark County in Nevada, Southern California, and western Texas. Really the job wasn't much of anything but it included mileage and really let me go really in depth with most of the southwest, I want to say I was in a hotel 120-150 nights a year? After that I was largely in the southeast which had some okay stuff, but was really nothing by comparison to the West Coast. Nowadays I'm really not on the road all that much for work by comparison but I have a lot more free time and daily driver that is cheap to maintain. Having work involved in getting me places was definitely the motivating factoring to getting me on the road so much, but it definitely isn't anymore.
That being the case my ideal route IF everything is open would be to take 9, 236, 17, and 35 to get across the Santa Cruz Range to San Francisco. After I go do what I have to, I would like to see Lombard Street before getting north over the Golden Gate. I have some family photos from 1993 at the Muir Woods and Point Reyes I would like to replicate since it is coming up on almost 25 years. I'm hoping to be able to stay somewhere near Sacramento that night and maybe go check out Lake Berryessa (National Monument 52 for me), CA 220 for the ferry, and maybe even the village Locke.
Anyways....that's the plan, we'll see how butchered up it gets by the storms.
From 101, it's quicker and easier to use the route through Fairfax to reach Point Reyes anyway. SR 1 is too curvy. And I believe that's an old state highway proposal.
Nacimiento-Fergusson opened briefly between the fire and the storms, but is now closed again. I don't think it'll be open until at least Highway 1 is totally open, and I doubt it will be even then.
The Delta ferries have been closed. I wouldn't count on them being open either.
Quote from: coatimundi on February 15, 2017, 07:37:17 PM
From 101, it's quicker and easier to use the route through Fairfax to reach Point Reyes anyway. SR 1 is too curvy. And I believe that's an old state highway proposal.
Nacimiento-Fergusson opened briefly between the fire and the storms, but is now closed again. I don't think it'll be open until at least Highway 1 is totally open, and I doubt it will be even then.
The Delta ferries have been closed. I wouldn't count on them being open either.
I doubt it will be open also on 220. but since I'm heading northeast via 160 to hit Locke it probably won't matter too much. All I really want is a picture of the ferry ramp and the BGS sign if it isn't open. Kind of what I had in mind for Point Reyes was to take CA 1 to Muir Woods Road, north to the Panoramic Highway, and west back over to 1 past the closure. From there I was thinking about maybe cutting over to Petamula or really anything that might have some curves to it. Speed isn't really much of what I'm looking in regards to the area north of the Bay, I'll have basically a full day to myself that Saturday.
I was actually mainly looking at the first couple miles east from CA 1 in regards to Nacimiento-Furgusson. There is a really nice bend about 2 miles up that has the best over look of the ocean and the road as it descends out of the Santa Lucias. Really I'll be able to get that at least knocked out even if it is closed to cars via foot or cars if need be. But then again like you said that really is so far down the line now it really isn't even worth worrying about the closure.
According to the USFS and Monterey County, the Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge, on Highway 1 near Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park, will remain closed to all traffic - pedestrian and vehicle - until at least 2-21, when it will be reassessed.
http://www.ksbw.com/article/pfeiffer-canyon-bridge-closed-indefinitely/8940534
The news showed the damaged column in question, and it looks like it could crumble at any time. This is an active landslide, so the rains this weekend may totally destroy the bridge.
The businesses in Posts, mostly resorts and tourist-oriented restaurants, are shutting down.
Caltrans posted a pic of the column as well: https://twitter.com/CaltransHQ/status/830930226255319040
All part of the fun of locating in an unstable rural location.
^^^
Hey now it is just another thing to go for "disaster tourism." Anyways, I guess I'll have to focus on just Nacimeinto-Furgusson in a month or two...and I was really looking forward to dodging Fort Hunter Liggett.