They park along highway shoulders and jam up traffic. They trespass on private property. They litter the woods with broken sleds, fast food wrappers and soda cans.
In Sierra mountain towns, locals refer to these day visitors disdainfully as “snowplayers.” And some leaders in rural Alpine County, south of Lake Tahoe, are fed up.
“We have to do something about it,” Alpine County Supervisor Terry Woodrow said during a meeting last month after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend. “A lot of these snowplayers just come into the village, don’t respect our property, trespass on county and private property, leave garbage and trash.”
Friends sled and play in the snow at Hell’s Kitchen Overlook, a vista point near Bear Valley not designated for snow play due to hazards such as rocks and trees. (Louis Bryant III/For the S.F. Chronicle)
Throughout the winter months, weekend travelers from the Bay Area and Central Valley decamp to the mountains to sled, build snowmen and generally delight in winter’s frozen playground. But when designated Sno-Parks fill up, visitors gather at roadside vista points or park along the highway shoulder by a clearing or a hillside and play there instead, often leaving behind a mess. During this drier-than-normal season, the issues may be particularly pronounced because, with less snow on the ground, tourists are concentrated in fewer places.
Woodrow described chaos along Highway 4 at pullouts and snow play areas near Bear Valley Ski Area. Hundreds of cars were haphazardly parked along the roadway during the holiday weekend, she said. In at least one instance, she said, a driver waited for a tow truck to extract an illegally parked car – then pulled into the vacated spot.
Local law enforcement officials issued dozens of parking tickets in just one snow play location along Highway 4, said Woodrow, who did not return Chronicle inquiries for this article.
“They just play all over your private property, and you can’t get them to leave,” Woodrow said of snowplayers. Surges of out-of-towners gobbling up parking spots, she said, means that “we’re held hostage in our community.”
‘Like Truckee 30 years ago’
With just over 1,200 residents, Alpine is California’s least-populous county. The county seat of Markleeville keeps little downtown besides a tavern, restaurant and lodge.
But the region is rich in Sierra scenery and offers all kinds of outdoor recreation, including downhill skiing at Bear Valley and, one valley over, Kirkwood. County Supervisor Evan Mecak said he believes Alpine has burgeoning potential to be Northern California’s next tourist fixation.
“It’s like Truckee 30 years ago,” Mecak told the Chronicle. “It’s incredible and people are just learning about it.”
The county needs tourists, Mecak said. “But we don’t want people leaving trash and broken sleds on the side of the road or endangering people while they’re doing it.”
Cars belonging to visiting families line a roadside pullout on Highway 4 near Round Valley and Lake Alpine Sno-Parks in Alpine County. (Louis Bryant III/For the S.F. Chronicle)
For Californians who don’t ski or live above the snowline, finding places to safely, affordably and legally play in the snow can be difficult. The state co-manages 18 Sno-Parks that dot the rural mountain highways between the Northern Sierra and Fresno County – areas maintained specifically for sledding, snowshoeing and low-level recreation. But they’re often overwhelmed on weekends, which can lead to the types of issues plaguing Alpine County. Also, many visitors don’t know they must buy $15 Sno-Park permits at designated stores or online before arriving, and violations abound, authorities say.
When the Sno-Park lots reach capacity, families that may have driven hours to enjoy the snow have to look elsewhere. In some places they’ll find privately run sledding hills that charge admission. But often the most seemingly practical option is to pull over and play on the side of the road.
In any case, the places where snowplayers congregate get messy fast, says Ruth Loehr, public information officer for the California Highway Patrol’s South Lake Tahoe Area, which includes Alpine County.
“It’s a lot of lawlessness,” Loehr said. “If nobody is watching, nobody’s going to follow the rules or do what they’re supposed to do.”
It’s not just litter and poop and illegal parking, she said. There have been concussions, broken limbs and some horrible accidents at unofficial sledding hills in recent years in her jurisdiction, Loehr said, including collisions that led to one person dying and another becoming paralyzed.
Vehicles line the shoulder along Highway 4 in January near Bear Valley as visitors play on a roadside slope near Lake Alpine and Round Valley Sno-Parks. (Louis Bryant III/For the S.F. Chronicle)
Less room to play
Some locals in Calaveras and Alpine counties have posited that problems at snow play areas along the Highway 4 corridor may be pronounced this winter due to low snowfall and warm temperatures. The snowline is higher, so snow chasers have fewer places to go.
However, in her recent Board of Supervisors address, Supervisor Woodrow made it clear that snowplayer behavior is a persistent headache in her district.
“I say this every year, but you’ve got to take it seriously,” she told the board.
The board instructed county staffers to draft a list of possible enforcement measures, and new rules and restrictions could be in place next winter. Supervisors tossed out several ideas: more law enforcement patrols, fines for bad behavior, higher parking citation fees, resident-only parking permits, metered parking.
“We’re open to any proposal that will assist the community,” Alpine County Undersheriff Taylor Green told the Chronicle.
The chaos on MLK weekend “was an eye-opener,” he said. “This is obviously a bigger problem than it has been historically, so how are we doing to address this issue in the future? We want to be fair to everybody.”
At the meeting, Supervisor Mecak presented one tongue-in-cheek solution to snowplayers’Â troublesome behavior, starting with a steep fee for parking illegally: “$2,000 admission fee for that might change that behavior pretty quick, and I would definitely be in favor of a $2,000 fine for something like that.”
This article originally published at ‘We’re held hostage’: Snow tourists are pushing a rural California county to the brink.