Dan's Outside

Closing Part of Curry Village – A Wise Decision

In my previous post I wrote about staying in a tent cabin at Curry Village in early November… and hearing rockfall from the cliffs above this lodging area.

I saw an article in SFGate this afternoon reporting that the park will close about a third of the units at Curry Village after deciding that the risk is too great. If I read the article correctly, experts have determined that the rockfall above this portion of Curry Village is not just a case of a few rocks occasionally coming down (a fairly normal thing in a place like this) but evidence of the unstable nature of portions of the cliffs in this area.

It doesn’t take a geologist to see that rockfall is a normal part of the Valley’s history, and that this particular area of the Valley is prone to it. One can easily see lighter areas on the cliff where “chunks” have come loose, and it is also easy to see that some of this is in an area of an overhang above Curry. If you visit the area along the base of the cliff you also quickly recognize that the big rocks on the Valley floor had to come from somewhere!

November 21, 2008 - Posted by gdanmitchell | Commentary