When American settlers first discovered Yosemite Valley (perhaps as early as 1833 by the Joseph Walker party, fairly certainly by William Penn Abrams in 1849 and most definitely seen and entered by the Mariposa Battalion in 1951), it had already been used by local Indians for thousands of years. At that time, there were a handful of crude trails used by the Indians to enter and leave the Valley. Difficult to follow (by white men) and mostly suitable to foot travel only, these remained the only routes in or out of the Valley for the first several years of visitation by a slowly but surely growing number of tourists.
In August, 1856, brothers Andrew, Milton and Houston Mann, who ran a livery stable in Mariposa (approximately 40 miles south of Yosemite Valley), completed a now largely obliterated horse trail in to the Valley. It is said to have closely followed an old Indian trail in to the Valley and it's final descent was precipitous and downright scary for all but the most seasoned mountaineers. At about the same time, two other Indian trails which approached the Valley from the North rim were widened in to horse trails. These trails merged at Crane Flat and continued on to make an equally frightening descent in to the Valley.
Although relatively few people had actually seen Yosemite Valley (throughout the 1850's, an average of 85 people a year made the intimidating and expensive trek), word of it's astonishing beauty (which most thought fantastically exaggerated at first) grew and, on June 30, 1864, President Lincoln signed a bill which designated Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees [i.e., Giant Sequoias] as lands of such exquisite natural beauty that they should be preserved in perpetuity for the enjoyment of all Americans.
With the country in the midst of the Civil War, the number of visitors remained small but did begin to grow...enough so, that by the 1870's, businessmen in the nearby towns of Big Oak Flat, Coulterville and Wawona (all along the existing crude horse-trails to the Valley), began to recognize that there was big money to be made if they were along the first major carriage road in to the Valley. The competition was often fierce and frequently cut-throat but, in close succession, three major carriage routes were completed: On June 17, 1874, the route from Coulterville was opened. Just 29 days later, on July 17, the somewhat shorter but higher-elevation route from Big Oak Flat was opened. A year later, on June 24, 1875, the 27-mile route from Wawona opened. Although all three routes offered bone-crunching rides in a sea of dust (the first person to greet travelers as they arrived at their Valley hotels was an employee with a large feather duster to brush off the worst of the dust) along routes where armed bandits held up the stages with some frequency, this was both comfortable and economical compared to what had come before.
Things changed again with the advent of the automobile. The first documented entry of a car in to the valley was on June 23, 1900 by Oliver Lippincot in his brand-new Locomobile. Seven years later, automobiles, still considered a new fad and a general nuisance were banned from the Park. In 1913, automobiles were again permitted but only on a single road (the poorly-maintained Coulterville Road) and subject to SIXTY-FIVE restrictions ranging from speed limits to stopping places to how to handle encounters with horse-drawn carriages. Within a few years, these rules were rescinded and, before the decade was over, horse-drawn carriages were a thing of the past.
The advent of the automobile also demanded that the dirt roads be tamed. Around the turn of the 20th century, the roads were oiled and, eventually, paved with asphalt. By the 1920's, this was inadequate and all three roads were replaced by (almost) completely different alignments which took parallel routes (although at generally lower altitudes). Today, there are still 3 roads in to the Valley:
- The current Big Oak Flat Road. This begins as CA-120 in Manteca and makes it's way up to the tiny village of Chinese Camp (the official starting point of the Old Big Oak Flat Road). It then climbs gradually upward to the Park's Western entrance at approximately 6200 feet elevation. Shortly after entering the Park, CA-120 veers to the East and becomes the Tioga Road (roughly paralleling the Old Tioga Road which, in turn, even more roughly parallels the old Great Sierra Wagon Trail of 1883). The Big Oak Flat Road becomes CA-41 and descends 2000 feet in to Yosemite Valley.
- The Old Coulterville Road is still a maintained, public road of various designations whose original route is largely intact although, once it nears the Park, it becomes increasingly unpassable to all but serious off-road vehicles. After passing through Big Meadow, the old road is completely blocked to travel except on foot and the final few hundred feet were forever obliterated by a massive rockslide in 1982. The roughly corresponding modern road, the "All-Weather Highway" (so-called because it's much lower elevation makes it more consistently useable in the winter than the 2000-foot higher Big Oak Flat Road), mostly follows the Merced River as it flows out of the Valley. Designated as CA-140, it begins in the San Joaquin Valley near the town of Gustine and terminates at the intersection of CA-41 at the west end of Yosemite Valley.
- The current Wawona Road is part of CA-41 which begins on the coast near Munro Bay. It enters Yosemite at its southern entrance, continues in to the Valley, constitutes the lower part of the Big Oak Flat Road and then terminates at Crane Flat (where the Big Oak Flat Road becomes CA-120). The Old Wawona Road, to a greater extent than the other two roads, was simply widened and modernized in many places. That is to say, in many places, the Old Wawona Road IS the New Wawona Road, although much improved. Many stretches of the old road are, however, separate from (although mostly fairly close to) the modern road. Although some of these stretches are heavily overgrown, several miles are easily passable on foot, including the entire stretch from the Valley Floor to the famous Inspiration Point.
The above is just a capsule history of roads into the Valley. Every week or so, I'll be posting increasingly detailed essays (with both historic and modern photographs) about specific aspects of the old and new roads along with questions about things I've not yet found the answers to. Comments are welcome and I'll do my best to answer questions that people may have. I hesitate to call myself any kind of expert on the subject but I have researched things fairly thoroughly (in modern and historical books and maps, by talking to people familiar with the history of the Park and by getting the dirt of those roads on my hiking boots) and I'll do my best to help.
Like anything one loves, I want to tell everybody about the roads and, at the same time I want to protect them from public onslaught. If you do attempt to traverse these old roads, please be careful, be respectful and come back and share your experiences here.
David
