California's most remote town gets cut off from rest of state by snow each winter - but has well-stocked library and general store
Markleeville has just 191 people, according to the 2020 Census. And the closest major city is Sacramento, which is still roughly 120 miles away by car.
It is also in California's least populated county, Alpine County, which has about 1,200 residents that are scattered around 700 square miles filled with dozens of lakes, a handful of rivers and three national forests.
In the winter, Markleeville is cut off from the rest of the state when enough snow clogs both the Ebbetts Pass and Monitor Pass in the Sierra Nevada mountain range.
That leaves the town with one route in and out that leads only to nearby Nevada and South Lake Tahoe.
But some enjoy the cozy feel of Markleeville, a place that essentially hibernates for months at a time before welcoming throngs of travelers in RVs looking to go camping.
That's certainly true of Avery Hellman, who moved to the town in search somewhere that was affordable, friendly, outdoorsy and offered plenty of opportunities to be creative.
Hellman, who had been working alongside her husband on her family's ranch in Petaluma, made the move in 2018 and never looked back.
'I've been to a lot of small towns,' Hellman told SFGate. 'I travel around California all the time, and I thought a lot about where I wanted to live.'
Just like she hoped, the community was welcoming, with a committee actually delivering her a packet of helpful information about her new home to her mailbox.
A few years after moving, Hellman and her husband bought the Markleeville General Store, which has been around since the 1800s.
In the summer, it is abuzz with activity as locals and visitors alike come to get ice cream after scenic bike rides.
For Hellman, keeping the store alive is an important part of keeping residents' nostalgia going strong.
'That's a huge part of what we do. It's almost like this symbolic experience for people that brings back their childhood memories because the store's been around for so long,' she said.
Hellman prefers running the store to ranching, a career that keeps you up all night, she said. Now, she feels like she's a part of the community.
'I never imagined that would be what we would do. But we just felt like it might as well be us. And we had a vision for it, and we were able to do it,' she said.
Another staple of Markleeville is its library, which is just one branch of Alpine County's surprisingly robust library system.
Rita Lovell, the director of the Alpine County Library system, lives in Markleeville and told SFGate that the library has become a community hub.
It doesn't just offer books but also free concerts in the summer, music jams every Friday and state park passes available for checkout.
'I'm surprised how many musicians there are in the area,' Lovell said. 'They've come out of the woodwork, and this has been the same core group for almost 10 years now.'
Lovell added that many new families are moving to the area based on how many more children seem to be showing up to story time sessions.
Lovell herself chose to raise her family in Markleeville, moving there in 1988 from Wisconsin alongside her husband.
'We found a nice little place that we were able to fix up, and that's how we landed here,' she said.
'It's just ideal, I think. It's a little mix of everything. We're close to Kirkwood. We're close to Carson City, Reno for shopping and Tahoe for the lake. Just hiking and biking and all the fun stuff we like to do, you're right in the heart of it,' she added.
There are certainly some drawbacks to living in a place so desolate.
Meghan Wolff, the executive director of the Alpine County Chamber of Commerce, explained that there's no newspaper in the county and that there's one person per 20 square miles.
Wolff told SFGate that tourists often find themselves unprepared as they realize that Google Maps won't load on their phone because of spotty service.
This sometimes leads to them getting into dangerous situations that put a strain on local emergency services.
However, Wolff said, when you do come prepared, the remoteness of the county is a great experience.
'Even though we're a vortex, I do think we're a pearl,' she said.
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