BIG OAK FLAT ROAD--A PICTURESQUE WAY TO YOSEMITE
One morning, while waiting for Foster City's Audubon Elementary School's kindergarden class to open, for my granddaughter, I saw in a local newspaper, Foster City Islander, the title "Big Oak Flat Road Into Yosemite." I read the small advertisement and started to remember the trips I took on the road as a teenager.
I never knew the history of the road, but I traveled on it many times to get to Yosemite. Because of my curiosity about the the road, I went to the Foster City Library and checked out a book on ways to get into Yosemite.
The book said..."After chasing a group of Miwok Indians and forcing them to sign a peace treaty, the Mariposa Battalion stumbled out of the forest on March 25, 1851, and gazed upon Yosemite Valley, which spread out before them.
Major James D. Savage and Dr. L. H. Bunnell, who led the battalion, were so impressed by what they saw that they, actually, forgot about the Indians. At their campsite, that night, Dr. Bunnell picked the name Yosemite, naming the area after the Yosemite Indians. "Discovery Of The Yosemite," a book written by Dr. Bunnell, spread the name of Yosemite; and in 1890, Yosemite became a National Park."
The most picturesque way, or road, into Yosemite at that time, 1890, and today,2007, is the "Big Oak Flat Road," on Highway 120. The small town of Big Oak Flat, which you pass through on your way to Yosemite and which the highway is named after, was originally known a "Savage Diggings." Mr. Savage, in 1850, settled the area with his five Indian wives and his servants.
Today, when you pass this area, you are traveling on a very good road into Yosemite. Therefore, from the junction of Highway 108 and Highway 120, it takes about an hour and half to two hours to get to Yosemite National Park, and another half hour to reach the valley of the park. In the days of Dr. Bunnell and other pioneers, this trip took many days; but nevertheless, the scenic trip to Yosemite has always been made over the "Big Oak Flat Road."
In the summer of 1989, this area was on fire and hundreds of acres of timber burned. Many of the forest animals left the area, and it took several days before the fire was contained and then controlled. The trees have started to grow again, which you can see when you are passing through, and many of the animals have returned; but when you look at the area, today--it looks like a tinderbox ready to explode.
