Beachgoers jam into lower Russian River, armed for fun and overtaxing parking

Forestville neighbors Donald Rathe and Laurel Anderson know where they’ll be next Saturday and, likely, every one after that for some weeks yet.

Just like they were Saturday, they expect to be waving off hordes of beachgoers who continue to throng their neighborhood across River Road from Steelhead Beach, showing little regard for public health advisories or, in many cases, for the residents there.

Even as Sonoma County passed 600 new cases of COVID-19 for the week on Friday night, west county beaches along the Russian River were swarmed Saturday. In many cases, visitors went without masks and ignored social distancing guidelines aimed at preventing the spread of the virus that has sickened and killed more people in the United States than any other country in the world.

Rathe grew up in the first house at the corner of Trenton Road near Argonne Way, where his 90-year-old mother still resides, and now lives in the house behind hers. He and Anderson, a newcomer not quite four years on the street, have seen too many blocked driveways, too many drunken partiers, too much trash and human waste left behind to feel welcoming toward those who drive from all over the Bay Area seeking to cool off in the refreshing waters of the Russian River.

“By nature, I’m not an a--hole,” said Rathe, 61, “but I have to be.”

He strode toward a bank of mailboxes at the foot of his mother’s sloped yard.

“Just some friendly people from somewhere pulled up here,” he said, gesturing toward a darkened stained on the asphalt. “See that wet spot? See that toilet paper? We’ve had as many as 350 people (unload from buses) here.”

The crowds along River Road and the lower Russian River corridor are a perennial problem, prompting complaints from residents and safety concerns, as hundreds of motorists park on narrow side streets, often illegally, and dash through traffic to get to the beach, loaded down with ice chests and inflatable tubes.

But even after watching the river grow in popularity as a regional destination year by year, neighbors and Sonoma County park personnel, who operate three well-used public beaches in Forestville, say there’s never been a season like this, as people trying to escape both the heat and the stifling suffocation of pandemic restrictions seek refreshment in the Russian River.

“It’s always been busy in the summer,” said Adam Venn, Rathe’s neighbor for 13 years. “Now it’s pretty out of control.”

The trouble is, the flight not only has outstripped available parking, it has packed local beaches at a time crowds specifically are to be avoided.

“Weekdays have been like weekends, and the holidays are like nothing we’ve ever seen before,” said Scott Bolin, supervising ranger for Sonoma County Regional Parks’ Russian River District. “We’ve had a consistently larger crowd than we’ve had before or than I’ve ever really seen in my career.”

Rangers at Steelhead Beach, the first beach off River Road running west and a popular place for rafters and kayakers to start downriver, counted around 1,400 visitors on Aug. 8 and close to 1,000 on Aug. 9, park department spokeswoman Meda Freeman said.

Just 31% were from Sonoma County, according to a park survey posted on Facebook by 5th District Sonoma County Supervisor Lynda Hopkins. Another 33% hailed from San Francisco, while about 34% were from other parts of the Greater Bay Area.

The Steelhead Beach parking lot has about 115 parking spots, normally, said Bolin, but a drop-off area has been open this summer, and people park all around the area and walk in, as well.

But with an intense heat wave forecast this weekend and rising concerns about crowding and poor social distancing, park officials took measures headed into this weekend to try to control the numbers.

In addition to reducing parking capacity by about 30% both at Steelhead and Sunset beaches, park personnel prohibited drop-offs and walk-in visitors.

Entry was barred once parking spaces were claimed, which at Sunset was at 10 a.m. and at Steelhead Beach Regional Park was an hour earlier.

“We had a line here at 8:30,” Ranger Darren Davis said, as two nearby aides whipped flags through the air to warn pausing motorists the entrance was closed.

Doran Beach has been similarly busy and was again on Saturday, Freeman said, adding that the coastal beach near Bodega Bay is so large that social distancing and overcrowding are generally not concerns there.

Most of those who flocked to the river were unshaken in their resolve to get in the water, and prowled neighboring streets for places to park amid a festive atmosphere, as visitors inflated colorful rafts and floaties, and prepared to trek to off-grid river-access points — even some who walked to park entrances only to be turned away from there.

“It’s hot” said a man named Joseph, one of eight San Francisco 30-somethings who parked at a park-and-ride lot at Mirabel and River roads. “I can’t sit inside anymore.”

He figured it was safe to float in the river with friends and neighbors who had quarantined together, even if “I don’t know if I’d be cool to sit at the beach” in a crowd.

But they had only gotten as far as determining through online research that Steelhead had a big parking lot, and were working on an alternate plan, at last check.

Down at Mother’s Beach, also known as the Forestville Access Beach, where a tiny public lot offers fewer than two dozen spaces, people were jammed as usual wherever they could squeeze between “no parking signs” and driveways, as well as in neighborhoods across River Road.

On man with a spacious, fenced lot behind his house allowed people to park there — for a fee. Another woman sold inflatable tubes from her driveway for $10 and $20.

“I’m making the best of the situation,” she said. “It’s not going to change.”

At Trenton Road and Argonne Way, Rathe kept vigil with Anderson, she in a bathing suit, he without a shirt, his skin tanned dark by so many days in the sun.

“I’d like to be doing something different on a Saturday, but I’m protecting our neighborhood,” Rathe said.

Anderson drew the line at defecation in bushes and on lawns, and expressed a particularly protective instinct when it came to elderly and the young.

“There are people around here with kids, and they don’t need to be seeing that. So we‘ve taken it on.”

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.