Published Raymond Ray
Article by Malia Dietz
Photos by Malia Dietz and Contributed
As people from all over Southern California ascended the mountains to enjoy the snow after recent storms; businesses were excited about the turnout, but some mountain residents were not.
The reason, trash, and lots of it.
The deluge of visitors to the San Bernardino County mountains to play in the snow left items behind in their wake. The mess has sparked the ire of the people who live in those areas.
From Crestline to Big Bear earlier in the week, trash could be found on streets, sidewalks and parking lots. The Big Bear Visitor Center, a popular destination for people who come up the mountain, had empty snow boots, broken sleds and soiled underwear scattered about.
Along a portion of the 18, local residents were seen picking up trash and broken sleds in the aftermath.
Fast-food everything – mustard, ketchup, cans of soda and beer bottles, paper wrappers and plastic straws along with anything and everything else that someone would take on a getaway could be found scattered along highways and in the forests.
Traffic, vandalism and trespassing are also problems. It isn’t just a deluge of trash that’s been a problem since the recent snowstorm; traffic also has been an issue. Drivers could be seen putting on snow chains in the middle of the 38, 18 and 330. Traffic backups delayed travel across the mountains for hours. Some families had even set up barbecues on the highway itself. On Saturday night a full blown bonfire was lit in a turnout on the 330 and earlier this week US Forest Service Officials responded to Highway 38 where multiple families were grilling on the right shoulder.
Residents also have had difficulties with trespassers, some of whom climbed over fence to play with snow in yards. Sheriff Deputies and CHP officers had to be called out to respond to many resident requests. Some tourists appeared to be ignoring signs and attempting to park wherever they wanted. On Saturday, CHP logs indicated that a person had used wire cutters to take down a fence and that up to three dozen snow players had then entered the property to play in the snow.
Law enforcement responded when they could after dealing with hundred of stranded and crashed motorists blocking traffic across the mountain highways. Scores of vehicles were ticketed by law enforcement and quite a few towed as well.
As far as the trash impact on the community, an 18 year long Big Bear Disposal employee who happens to be a 56 year resident of the mountain stated that trash is being left everywhere and the sheer volume is unbelievable.
Several mountain residents say that, in the wake of a particularly snowy season, they hope tourists will consider the residents of the towns they are visiting.
“Please appreciate our beautiful town, we chose to be here, it’s gorgeous and it has wonderful people. … Please appreciate how lovely it is here,” asked one Big Bear Resident.
This story needs to get out to the major TV news media
I have had second residences in Big Bear for forty years and this problem is getting worse every time it snows. I feel strongly that a litter enforcement of $10,000(sounds good) for littering of anything and have enforcers present in these areas…a sign should specify that CLEARLY…something HAS to be done!….how dare the visitors abuse such beauty!…SHAME ON EVERYONE OF THEM!!
I appreciate that one Big Bear resident was quoted as asking so nicely for people to appreciate our beauty. I’ve lived in Big Bear 64 years and have seen exponential tourist growth. I love that Big Bear Village has worked so hard to make it a lovely place to stroll and there are a lot of people doing that. But it is appalling to me to drive by locations clearly marked “No Trespassing” where dozens of families are sledding. And they are not safe where they often choose to play. I wish we had big open hills without trees where families could play and sled safely, but such is not the nature of this valley. I have no idea what it will take for visitors and residents to live and play in harmony. It is just a case of too many people in too small a space.
It’s been the same for many years it has just gotten worse
This article accurately states the problems the mountain communities are experiencing. The problem is what do we do? There has also been instances of violence when locals try to get people off their property, remove their trash and broken sleds, not to park blocking access to people homes, visitors remove fences so they can trespass, use and break local children’s toys the list goes on and on and yet we are constantly told it’s not our mountain so “deal with it”. We as residents on the mountain are trying to “deal with it”, but the shear number of problems and the amount of garbage and traffic is overwhelming.
This story MUST get to the TV stations! It’s awful. We had local teens picking up trash and broken sleds that people just left. This needs to go public!
The safety of our entire mountain has been compromised! The beauty has been violated! And then we as citizens are asked to pay for more fire and emergency services! If you call 911 on a weekend you would be lucky to have a response in time. Why doesn’t our city council do anything about the problems? They have totally bowed to the ski areas! If you try to open a business up here, they will demand that you have plenty of parking, but they don’t require the ski areas to have it! When is the safety of all going to be considered? I truly believe that the city council members are being paid off! When they come up for election, every one of them should be voted out. They are so concerned with bringing money in from the tourists that they have lost sight of taking care of the beauty that surrounds us and our safety! The road into Big Bear Lake should be a toll road for all the visitors. Why do we constantly have to pay the price, by our taxes being raised, to take care of the tourists? Why shouldn’t they take some of this burden? Why does the city council constantly dump it all on the residents? We have to fire them all and vote in people who care for our valley and the people that live here! Our mountain is being destroyed!
Here in the mountains of Andorra where I live after growing up in Running Springs, when we get a big snow we can get up to 100,000 tourists from Spain. The Andorran government has opened numerous parking lots in each towns, some dirt but most with asphalt. Throught the towns there are large trash cans and some bins with signs but no signs for littering fines. Making it easy to pop trash into a container everywhere you look seems to keep the towns about 95% clean. Some things bins are metal so they can’t be vandalized. Since Andorra lives off of 15 million tourists per year they make it very tourist friendly. I don’t know if these ideas would work in the San Bernardino mountains?
And yet southern California lets the developers plow full steam ahead with these giant housing developments, packing as many lemmings into the area as possible. We are low on water and infrastructure is a disaster. As the population grows in an area ill suited to support it, people who abuse their surroundings are just one of the signs of the times.
The comments made in the original news articles and replies are spot on! It is
Such a shame to see the disrespect to the forest, private property and to the mtn community
Yes business enjoys the revenue, but law inforcement needs to enforce littering and improper
Parking . County, City and State politicians need to do there job in there jurisdictions
To add additional resources and learn from the environmental mess that is being created and
Develop more meaningful laws and penalties. Each snow event just seems to add more to the trash dump along the mtn roads.
Its a shame that such dirty noncaring lowlanders have to ruin a beautiful area. And they’re teaching their children to be the same. Vicious cycle! I say man more areas with law enforcement or volunteers to hand out hefty tickets. I would love yo volunteer to do so.
“A” solution…….enforce the law requiring possession of chains, by VISUAL inspection, at the bottom of the hill(s). A huge percentage of the cars will turn around.
Simple solution…… Start fining these people! Littering is just not allowed. It’s bad enough locals have to deal with all of the traffic, intense back-ups on the road with people putting on chains and not even pulling off the roads,, garbage just being left…the list goes on. Citations need to be given out and then people would realize that BB takes these offenses seriously.
I frequently visit crestline and big bear in the winter and im disappointed at how people leave trash all over the place its sickening
I live in Pine Cove (Idyllwild) and have resorted to videoing snow tourists making the videos public. I am hoping public shame will be an answer. As a community member, I am grateful for all the tourists who visit our community. We depend on the goodwill of those vacationers. But when they visit and do not shop in town, but destroy our property having little to no respect for our beautiful community, we really wish you would not come. We are expecting 5 more days of snow this coming weekend. I live on highway 243. Many parents allow their kids to play and sled on the slopes bordering 243 which is extremely dangerous. They could easily loose control of the sled and cross into oncoming traffic on the 243. The posted speed limit for where I live is 30 mph. Maybe 15% obey that speed limit. Most drive 55 to 75 mph on that stretch of road. I have in the past called the CHP and the Sheriff’s but their response and lack of direct action is also frustrating. Therefore, I have created a deterrent which I will be testing out this weekend in hopes that it will solve an issue that seems to be getting worse with no improvement in site. Will these visitors play in yellow snow? I will continue to video the trespassing, littering and dangerous behavior of snow visitors who refuse to respect our mountain, and common decency of not playing on private property. I am hoping NBC, ABC or another major network will do a series of stories covering all mountain communities in California that suffer from these issues. In the meantime, if you own property and or are frustrated with the lack of respect from Flat Landers, I will be happy to send you a bottle of FL B-Gone as my gift (you pay postage). I am hoping this product will deter visitors from damaging my home this weekend.
It is unreal the amount of disrespect our mountain communities get. It has become such a problem in Idyllwild and Pine Cove and not just the trespassing, litter and illegal parking but the harassment of the trespassers when asked to leave your property. One woman was told to go back inside her home and to f-off. They are threatening property owners and continue to do whatever they want. Some get right up on residents decks and have gone on to barbecue while their family plays in the snow. Asking nicely does nothing but anger the trespasser. Law enforcement cutbacks prevent much of a presence in town and something needs to be done. I don’t ever remember such disrespect from visitors when I was growing up.
I live in Frazier Park area where we get trash like this after it snows too. There are dumpsters for broken sleds and other trash very close to where they sled,yet still there are those who don’t care enough to throw it away. We also have to deal with tons of traffic. Which is not good if an Emergency happens to anyone. A lot of are locals are elderly. If an Emergency does happen the ambulance will run into major problems as we only have 1 lane in each direction.
A trip from in town to homr that might take 5 minutes on a normal day can take 30-40 minutes. I love the snow but dread the snow bunnies.
Wish the news didn’t report about it at times.
City council and the forestry need to put a limit of how many skiers can be on the hill since Mammoth bought the ski areas town has been overloaded with tourist whenever it snows and I think the unlimited ticket sales is a part of the problem but I think our city council is too weak and too scared to do anything about it