I emailed the Inyo County road dept and got this answer:

Quote:I’m not sure the exact location of any washouts and we are expecting significant rain Friday. I can not speak to your plans.
The Counties portion of the road is closed.

It's maddening that I cannot find anyone who actually knows anything.

Talked to the rangers again today. Word right now is North Road open in “hopefully a few days”. Specifically asked about a couple of weeks from now and they said “oh yes it should definitely be open by then”

Obviously things change all the time.

This ranger also contradicted the last 2 rangers I spoke to and said North Hwy is NPS’s road. So who freaking knows.

(2023-03-07, 05:34 PM)Beardilocks Wrote: Talked to the rangers again today.  Word right now is North Road open in “hopefully a few days”.  Specifically asked about a couple of weeks from now and they said “oh yes it should definitely be open by then”

Obviously things change all the time. 

This ranger also contradicted the last 2 rangers I spoke to and said North Hwy is NPS’s road.  So who freaking knows.

Thank you!  This gives us hope.  Now, if the sun will only shine.

The "alerts" at nps.gov says still closed, but the road status map shows both North and Beatty Cutoff as open - the Cutoff was showing open this morning.

It also stays no gas at SPW until "at least 6 March" but... that text is clearly not being updated.

Ha! What a mess! It does show all open in the map! Well hopefully its not a glitch but good news

Beatty cutoff was for sure open this morning. But not North Rd.

My NPS map online shows it was last updated 3/4.

Thanks to all for updating. This information is more useful then what I got at the visitors centers. At Stovepipe Wells on 3/3 I was told that there was some debris on the road but that it should open in a "few days". At Furnace Creek that same morning nobody seemed to know about the extent of the damage or possible time for repairs. I was also unable to get information regarding the conditions of either the Lemogeine canyon road or the Tucki mountain road. Good luck to all travellers on weather and road conditions. I still had a great trip and saw some new areas. Ashford Canyon is open and passable in a high clearance 2wd.

Well, this is nuts. The conditions page has a contradiction. My head is spinning. Was the North Hwy still blocked by road closed signs? It might take a day for the news to filter through the organization. The map is different than what is was yesterday. Somebody changed it for a reason.

I was through there around Noon yesterday and the road had closed signs. Goodluck on your trip.

(2023-03-08, 07:28 AM)donutnational Wrote: I was through there around Noon yesterday and the road had closed signs.  Goodluck on your trip.

Thanks for the on the scene report, and also from Beardilocks.  Seems like NPS doesn't quite have their media management together - or even communication between their own sites

This last night I was reminiscing about how they used to issue the Morning Report each day around six, and fax it over to SPW , and then they included a web link to the daily PDF.  Should have just left it that way!  But I recall there was some issue about it being hosted on an unofficial server (Natural History Association maybe?) and so that wasn't allowed.

Now we have fancy clickable and zoomable map graphics....  dishing out unreliable info