Bee, your plans to head over Tioga reminds me of a trip two years ago. Yosemite reports that the road is closed, "and crews are working on it". That phrase means they expect to open the road some time that day.
I didn't realize that, and headed south through Bakersfield to get to Mammoth. An hour south, I called road conditions, and Tioga was OPEN! I should have headed through Yosemite. It would have been open before I got there.
It turned a 4-hour trip into a 7-hour trip.
