Exploring Briceburg and Burma Grade: Historic Yosemite Area Routes

Going Left: Going west (left) gives e-Biking on a spacious dust street main towards the McCabe

Flat campground, roughly two miles away. You may proceed previous the campground, however the street

then narrows to an overgrown single observe so thick with brush that it’s arduous even to stroll by.

Going Proper: Heading proper (east) is a slender, single-track path alongside the Merced River canyon,

extending 4 miles, the place springtime poppies bloom. Alongside this route, you’ll cross footpaths

over outdated, washed-out bridges destroyed through the historic 1997 flood when the Merced River in

Yosemite Valley rose 10 ft above flood stage. (I used to be right here for this historic, wild occasion; park

residents, together with me, had been evacuated and needed to drive over deep rivers crossing the street.)

On the four-mile mark, the freeway crosses the Merced River by way of a (short-term) bridge put in

after the huge Ferguson Slide destroyed a portion of the Central Yosemite Freeway (140) in

2006. Though chain-link fences now block additional entry previous the slide, it’s not closed, however you

can’t cross the gate. Nonetheless, you’ll be able to journey this subsequent several-mile-long stretch from entry factors

additional down the freeway.

Choices embrace departing from the Redbud Picnic Website, taking Incline Highway west, or driving west

from El Portal. This part remains to be a part of the outdated Yosemite Railroad, which ran from 1907 to

1945. Shuttered as a result of monetary losses and elevated tourism by way of non-public vehicles, the El Portal

railroad station ultimately burned to the bottom, leaving solely the caboose as a historic

landmark, marked with white paint YV15.