Mineral King Road Closed to Vehicular Traffic at Park Gate

Posted 2 years ago by A member of the 3RTogether Team

The following message is from Dave Fox, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks District Ranger:

Friends,

The Mineral King Road has seen some significant damage. Today we spoke with Tulare County to ensure they were aware of the erosion happening around mile 8.5 on the road near the Mitchell Ranch. About 3-5′ of pavement is gone for about 20′, bringing it down to one lane. We don’t recommend driving heavy equipment over it, and as always, you should make your own evaluation and assess the risk prior to driving a passenger car on it. 

Our crew drove up that way and got on bicycles to look at the MK Road within the park. The pictures I’m sharing are much worse than the ones I sent last week. Part of the roadway is so badly undercut that we are closing the road from the gate to vehicular traffic. We currently have federal highways road engineers out helping us with three breaches to the road integrity between Ash Mountain and Giant Forest. They specifically asked about the MK Road.

I hope everyone heeded my warning from a couple of weeks ago and no one is currently stuck in Mineral King. There are now rock slides and boulders on the road that we will not be able to clear because we cannot get heavy equipment to it. Currently, we are addressing the Generals Highway with residents behind the damage and we don’t yet have a time line for that. Mineral King timelines will be further delayed. I can only ask for your patience while we deal with these unprecedented storms. 

We are anticipating another 4-6″ of precipitation by Tuesday. Please look at the photos, but don’t risk your lives or risk getting caught behind a blowout where rescue may be impossible. Once this next system blows through, we’ll have another opportunity to see where we stand and try to get a plan for how to proceed in Mineral King. 

Again, sorry for the bad news. We are doing everything we can to hold the park together while California remains in a state of emergency. 

[SOURCE: Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks]