California State Route 120
state highway in California, Untied States
State Route 120 (SR 120) is a state highway in the central part of California that connects the San Joaquin Valley with the Sierra Nevada, Yosemite National Park, and the Mono Lake area. It runs between Interstate 5 (I-5) in Lathrop and U.S. Route 6 (US 6) in Benton, traversing four counties over a distance of approximately 153 miles (246 km). The route rises from near sea level in the Central Valley to 9,945 feet (3,031 m) at Tioga Pass, the highest highway pass in the state highway system. While SR 120 is signed as a continuous route through Yosemite, the portion inside the park is federally maintained and is not included in the state route logs. The segment through Tioga Pass and the stretch between Mono Lake and Benton are subject to annual winter closure, typically from November through late May.
The route has origins in the Gold Rush-era Big Oak Flat Road, a wagon road completed to Yosemite Valley in 1874. Through Yosemite, SR 120 follows Tioga Road, designated as both a National Scenic Byway and a National Forest Scenic Byway.
Route description
Route 120 is defined in section 420 of the California Streets and Highways Code. The definition omits the federally maintained segment through Yosemite National Park, as well as the concurrency with US 395 instead of duplicating that segment in the other route's definition in the code:
Route 120 is from:
(a) Route 5 near Mossdale to the west boundary of Yosemite National Park via the vicinity of Manteca and Oakdale, and via Big Oak Flat and Buck Meadows.
(b) The east boundary of Yosemite National Park to Route 395 near Mono Lake.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q758090. Authority coordinates are 37.783, -121.233. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1874.
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This entry incorporates text from “California State Route 120” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.