Travel-World Photography
Tioga Pass is a mountain pass in the Sierra Nevada mountain range of California. State Route 120 runs through it, and serves as the eastern entry point for Yosemite National Park, at the Tioga Pass Entrance Station. It is the highest elevation highway pass in California and in the Sierra Nevada at an elevation of 3,031 m.
This pass, like many other passes in the Sierra Nevada, has a gradual approach from the west and drops off to the east dramatically, loosing more than 900 m by the time the road reaches U.S. Route 395 on the east side.
The pass is closed during winter due to high snowfall.
We travelled over the pass together with friends, coming from a camping site on the north side of Yosemite National Park. At the peak of the pass, the children enjoyed playing a little on a snow field. And the area gets a lot of snow. In December 2022 the actual snow depth on the ground at Mammoth Lake, a little south of Tioga, was 13 m!
On the east side of the pass, we visited the Devils Postpile", an unusual rock formation of columnar basalt, "all closely and perfectly fitted together like a vast mosaic.
