What's being done to prevent big crowds on the Russian River in summer 2021

Big crowds on the Russian River are nothing new. Back when Guerneville was “Stumptown,” restless lumberjacks and sawmill workers often gathered for a good time on the banks. In the heyday of the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s, when San Francisco families fled to the river every summer and big bands led by Tommy Dorsey and Harry James played into the night, the beaches were always packed.

But last summer, during the COVID-19 pandemic and endless heat waves, the size of crowds on the water rose to a new level.

“It was like New Delhi on the river,” said Don McEnhill, executive director of Russian Riverkeeper, a nonprofit that advocates for the river and organizes trash cleanups along its banks. “More people showed up than the river could realistically handle.

“What changed really was the boldness,” he added. “There were instances where people came out with a chainsaw and mowed down a bunch of trees and vegetation because there was no fence in front of it. Once they cleared everything, they just drove through the vineyard and got to the river.”

On Labor Day weekend, to get to the river, trespassers broke into the former Hanson gravel mining property south of Healdsburg using a four-wheel-drive truck, “ramming open an industrial steel gate 6 inches thick,” said McEnhill, who learned to swim on the river while staying at his family’s Fitch Mountain cabin every summer. “(They) brought a bunch of junk out there and started a fire.”

Farther north in Alexander Valley, Geyserville resident Adriane Garayalde documented weekend after weekend of illegal camping, fires and garbage left behind near the Geyserville Bridge. At one spot, she filled two 50-pound feed bags with human excrement and toilet paper left behind. The “No Parking” signs she and neighbors put up along Highway 128 and River Lane were repeatedly knocked down.

For visitors from Sonoma County and places like San Jose, the East Bay and Sacramento, driven stir-crazy by the shelter-in-place orders and eager to escape the heat during 100-degree spells, the Russian River was a lifeline last summer.

But for some, the big crowds were a nightmare.

With no end to the pandemic in sight, this summer has the potential to bring the same big crowds to the Russian River as last summer. What will be different?

Now, in the dead of winter, when most locals reclaim the river for themselves, a band of concerned citizens, nonprofit leaders and government officials are working on the answer, strategizing how to prevent a sequel to last summer.

Preparing for summer 2021

Over the years, Phil Grosse, president of the Hacienda Improvement Association, which oversees the tiny hamlet of around 250 houses west of the Hacienda Bridge, has seen fist fights and people “knocked out” while arguing over river access and parking.

Last summer, tensions between frustrated neighbors and occasionally drunken visitors, who sometimes illegally parked their cars, often came to a head.

“We’ve never seen anything like it,” Grosse said.

The $8,000 that Hacienda residents shell out every year for a $40-per-hour security guard to patrol their private beach was never more essential than last summer, Grosse said.

Sonoma County Regional Parks banned party buses (which they’d restricted to two per beach per day the year before) due to COVID-19 restrictions. But parking lots at Steelhead, Mom’s and Sunset beaches (a total of only 238 spots) still filled up early every summer weekend morning, including in the overflow parking. Nearby, visitors can find legal roadside parking spots in neighborhoods like Villa Grande, Hacienda and Forest Hills. But when those reach capacity, latecomers often park illegally, sometimes blocking residential driveways.

Efforts are being made to address the parking, for starters. County Supervisor Lynda Hopkins, who is looking at ways to prevent both the river and the coast from being overrun, is working with Caltrans to create signs along Highway 101 warning tourists when the river is filled to capacity.

“I’ve heard it’s been very effective in Marin to have those signs on 101,” she said. “Someone who drives all the way from 101 to Bodega Bay, they’re not going to turn around because they’ve gone that far and they’re that close. But if someone sees that lots are full and they can make that decision while they’re still on 101, they can keep heading north and go to Mendocino or somewhere else and not be stuck in traffic. It allows them to make that decision ahead of time.

“I think that some of our most beloved environments in Sonoma County are in danger of being loved to death,” she added. Her office is working on branding a river awareness campaign, in the spirit of “Keep Tahoe Blue” or “Don’t Mess with Texas,” that would empower people to protect their natural resource.

“I firmly believe we need to encourage stewardship in our visitors, so people come here not for a drunken spring break experience but to truly cherish the environment the way that those of us who live here do.”

Other ideas include creating an Adopt-a-Highway program and discouraging disposable plastics like water bottles and one-time-use floaties. Hopkins said a river shuttle proposal has been drawn up but was shelved during the pandemic because of restrictions. The idea is for a park-and-ride system, possibly starting in the Fulton or Sonoma County airport area, that would shuttle visitors to and from the river.

It certainly would have helped last summer when “every weekend was like the Fourth of July,” said Sonoma County Regional Parks Manager David Robinson, who worked with an expanded crew to add extra garbage cans and dumpsters and constantly refresh signage at Sunset, Steelhead and Mom’s Beach parks. “People came from all over. They found the river. It’s not just a local spot, like when I was growing up.”

Whereas the organization used to actively promote and publicize various park features on Facebook, now they try to educate. “We did a big social media push and boosted our Facebook coverage, paying extra to get it into the East Bay and South Bay to say, ‘We’re gonna be full by 9 o’clock. If you’re not here by 9, it’s not worth coming,’” Robinson said. “But they show up at 11, 12, 1. They made up their minds and they’re coming.”

When a San Francisco group planned a massive river float that drew hundreds of RSVPs, the parks communications team got on Facebook to make sure it didn’t happen.

In the Alexander Valley area, McEnhill and Garayalde are working to create a “river patrol,” especially during holiday weekends. Modeled after COPE (Communities Organized to Prepare for Emergencies) disaster response groups, it would be a tight-knit neighborhood watch force, with private landowners driving around to spot trespassers trashing the river, in coordination with CHP, the Sheriff’s office and Caltrans.

At Hacienda, Grosse and neighbors have come up with a proposal for a residential parking permit program like they have in cities such as Berkeley and San Francisco. His plan involves carefully marking all parking places along the rural roads, reserving a portion for stickered resident cars, charging paid parking for visitors to help fund the program and then regulating it with parking enforcement officers.

“It’s foolish to just say, ‘As many people as can manage to drive here, can park wherever they want,’ to the detriment of our local neighborhoods,” Grosse said.

He submitted the proposal to the county in October but doesn’t know if it will go anywhere.

Instagram popular

Thanks to social media, secluded stretches of the river were suddenly discovered last summer. A north county beach “the size of a basketball court” was invaded by hundreds from around the Bay Area after someone in the East Bay posted on Instagram that it was “a great spot to let your dog run loose,” McEnhill said.

“People came from all over the Bay Area. I talked to people from San Jose, the East Bay. One guy I talked to was from L.A. He said, ‘A friend told me this was a great place to come,’” said Garayalde, who’s now the coordinator for Russian River Confluence, a group started by Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore.

The memory of last summer is so painful that one neighborhood association president canceled an interview when she realized it would reveal where she lived along the river, saying, “One of the things that happened last summer is that my little, tiny community went from being a loosely kept secret to being known all over the planet on Instagram.”

With Memorial Day only four months away and no sign of the pandemic waning, locals are open to new ideas but not optimistic they will prevent another mass influx of visitors to the river.

Sometimes the best remedy is to simply stay away from the water during peak surges, some say.

“Like many West County residents, I stay home Memorial Day weekend,” Hopkins said. “I’d rather be out on the Russian River on a beautiful 70-degree day in February when you don’t have any tourists.”