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Crag & Route Beta

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Topic Date User

Yosemite closures 15-Jun-2012 At 4:19:47 PM wombly

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>in the end I think unless you're a geologist you have to accept that the NPS, on the advice >of expert geologists didn't really have a choice to close any areas that were concluded to >be of a high risk level

From a geology standpoint the report doesn't have any glaring inconsistencies - they've set out to map out hazard zones for rockfall, used up to date tools and techniques, and seem to have done a pretty good job. In the bit that I have actual professional expertise on, their methods and results have been pretty exhaustive (think someone toiling for six months in the lab), and have been interpreted sensibly.

The hazard ranges that they've defined have been based on some pretty solid data e.g. mapping the distribution of boulders produced by rockfall (e.g. the ones actually in camp 4), and have been modified a little by results from some modelling experiments. In the case of Camp 4, the modelling actually led to the hazard being downgraded, while the opposite was the case for Curry village.

So:

>Didn't the park authorities want to close camp 4 in the past? If so this could be a >roundabout way of doing that under the disguise of safety?

I'm not convinced that they've been overly biased against Camp 4 relative to the other campgrounds/accomodation in the valley.

All we need now is to get them to model how likely it is for you to lever off that dodgy flake that looks just ready to go...