I just called the County.
The county will keep the lower road closed until the National Forest decides to issue wilderness passes. Until then the county see no reason to re-open the road. The county has been told that June 30 is when the National Forest is planning on issuing wilderness permits again.
Shasta-Trinity has already re-opened Mt. Shasta for summiting. I doubt that Shasta will see a wave of death and misery due to this, and their businesses will do better. That's Jefferson for you.
Hopefully the folks at Inyo National Forest will see the sense in allowing people to hike and camp in the wilderness. If they really don't open until July Owens Valley will lose half of its summer income.
But that said, I took a trip over to Bishop two weeks ago and it was pretty lively. Many of the retail stores were open, and every place I ate at was really glad to see me. So don't buy the anti-tourism hype being pushed around by a few nerve-jobs online. People out there actually want to survive and they're beginning to see that they might not because of the response.
