Latest news with #AnaiahKirk
Daily Mail
12-07-2025
- Daily Mail
California lakeside oasis is overrun by outsiders
A gorgeous California lakeside oasis has turned into everything but that after being overrun by rowdy and disruptive outsiders causing 'apocalyptic' scenes. Pinecrest Lake, a stunning body of water and outdoor site located in the Sierra Nevada , has long been known as a hotspot for swimming, hiking and camping - but it has turned into somewhat of a warzone in recent years. The 300-acre lake, owned and operated by Pacific, Gas and Electric Company, is tucked away in Tuolumne County's Stanislaus National Forest that has long been visited by tourists and even called home for locals. The locals, who live in cabins at the lake, have noticed a surge in visitation from outsiders since the pandemic, as well as in the summer months and weekends. What they weren't prepared for was what tourists brought with them, including violent fights, drugs, illegal camping, parking, letting dogs roam around free, graffiti-covered bathrooms, among other disturbances. 'Personally, I rarely go to the lake on weekends anymore because we know what a mess it is,' said Martha Geiszler, who owns a cabin near the lake and manages the Friends of Pinecrest Facebook Group, told the San Francisco Chronicle. 'There's very little visitor information given and very little law enforcement presence, so every rule is broken,' she added. Geiszler (pictured) isn't the only one who's noticed the uptick in chaos, as Tuolumne County Supervisor Anaiah Kirk told the outlet: 'There have been some apocalyptic weekends.' Locals and park workers have also had to deal with an influx of traffic, trash, cars parked in fire lanes, and even drownings. In October 2023, a 59-year-old man drowned while swimming in Pinecrest Lake. When officers with the Tuolumne County Sheriff's Office got to the lake, they questioned witnesses and reviewed video footage from the man's boat. It was later determined that the man, Brian Campbell, jumped into the water without a lifejacket on, his friend told police. The friend managed to drag him back to shore after jumping in after him. Medics then performed life-saving measures on Campbell, but he was pronounced dead at the scene. With chaos at an all time high at the lake, the county has set up new measures to try and decrease the troubling behavior. Kirk (pictured) said if those fail to help stop it, he is prepared to implement stricter rules that would make it harder not just for victors, but for locals, to enjoy the area. 'I'm ready to go full-bore and do a lot more things,' Kirk said. 'But we're slowing down and going to implement a few things at a time.' First and foremost, Kirk said the county will crack down on the slew of illegal parking around the lake. Just last summer, a number of emergencies were slowed down due to illegally parked cars lined up along Pinecrest Lake Road, Tuolumne County Sheriff David Vasquez told the outlet. Hundreds of citations were written last year, with most of them related to parking violations, Vasquez added. In March, just before the summer months hit, the Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors approved new parking violation fees for the lake to try to get the problem under control. A $35 ticket has since been hiked up to $100 for the first offense, and $200 for the second. The county has also gone on to install dozens of 'No Parking' signs along Pinecrest Lake Road to deter people from leaving their vehicles on the roadsides. 'People were looking at a $35 citation as an acceptable tradeoff. We need to create a psychological deterrent,' Vasquez said. Kirk, along with other supervisors, is keen about increasing the first offense penalty to $250 if parking issues persist. While staff has tried to crack down on the parking dilemma, furious locals have called for more beach patrols and rule enforcement at the lake. So far this summer, Geiszler said she has seen a lack of staffing at the lake - something she attributes to the recent cuts to federal land workers. Pinecrest Lake is under the supervision of the U.S. Forest Service, an agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture. President Donald Trump has slashed U.S. Forest Service operations and funding for National Forest management by about $800 million. Shawn Winstead, the district ranger for the Forest Service's Sugar Pine District, said two staffers are assigned to patrol Pinecrest and clean the bathrooms there. Locals, including Geiszler, said that there are not at all enough employees to take care of the area. She recalled the approximately six bathrooms looking 'absolutely disgusting' during Memorial Day Weekend. 'You can't just have one or two people patrolling the beach every weekend with all those people,' she added. According to Vasquez, staffing in his office has increased over the past year and he is making sure his deputies are prioritizing calls from Pinecrest this summer to try and crack down on the mayhem. 'I stand behind everyone's constitutional rights to access that land, but we were receiving astronomical amounts of complaints about overcrowding and illegal parking,' he said. While many locals have brought up implementing restrictions across the park and lake at local town hall meetings, Winstead said the county has not decided on that just yet. 'Right now, we're not looking at restricting access in any way. We're trying to keep everything open for everybody,' he explained. 'But if there were some kind of restriction in that area, we'd have a carrying capacity and that would affect everybody — cabin owners, visitors, everybody.' Kirk said they have also considered bringing in metered parking spaces into the beach area, installing a gated tollbooth at the entrance that would not allow cars in when capacity is reached, and offering a parking shuttle to the beach. 'There are a lot of potentials. We'll have an evaluation after this summer,' Kirk said.
Daily Mail
08-07-2025
- Daily Mail
Gorgeous lakeside paradise is overrun by horribly-behaved outsiders leaving locals outraged
A gorgeous California lakeside oasis has turned into everything but that after being overrun by rowdy and disruptive outsiders causing 'apocalyptic' scenes. Pinecrest Lake, a stunning body of water and outdoor site located in the Sierra Nevada, has long been known as a hotspot for swimming, hiking and camping - but it has turned into somewhat of a warzone in recent years. The 300-acre lake, owned and operated by Pacific, Gas and Electric Company, is tucked away in Tuolumne County's Stanislaus National Forest that has long been visited by tourists and even called home for locals. The locals, who live in cabins at the lake, have noticed a surge in visitation from outsiders since the pandemic, as well as in the summer months and weekends. What they weren't prepared for was what tourists brought with them, including violent fights, drugs, illegal camping, parking, letting dogs roam around free, graffiti-covered bathrooms, among other disturbances. 'Personally, I rarely go to the lake on weekends anymore because we know what a mess it is,' said Martha Geiszler, who owns a cabin near the lake and manages the Friends of Pinecrest Facebook Group, told the San Francisco Chronicle. 'There's very little visitor information given and very little law enforcement presence, so every rule is broken,' she added. Geiszler isn't the only one who's noticed the uptick in chaos, as Tuolumne County Supervisor Anaiah Kirk told the outlet: 'There have been some apocalyptic weekends.' Locals and park workers have also had to deal with an influx of traffic, trash, cars parked in fire lanes, and even drownings. In October 2023, a 59-year-old man drowned while swimming in Pinecrest Lake. When officers with the Tuolumne County Sheriff's Office got to the lake, they questioned witnesses and reviewed video footage from the man's boat. It was later determined that the man, Brian Campbell, jumped into the water without a lifejacket on, his friend told police. The friend managed to drag him back to shore after jumping in after him. Medics then performed life-saving measures on Campbell, but he was pronounced dead at the scene. With chaos at an all time high at the lake, the county has set up new measures to try and decrease the troubling behavior. Kirk said if those fail to help stop it, he is prepared to implement stricter rules that would make it harder not just for victors, but for locals, to enjoy the area. 'I'm ready to go full-bore and do a lot more things,' Kirk said. 'But we're slowing down and going to implement a few things at a time.' First and foremost, Kirk said the county will crack down on the slew of illegal parking around the lake. Just last summer, a number of emergencies were slowed down due to illegally parked cars lined up along Pinecrest Lake Road, Tuolumne County Sheriff David Vasquez told the outlet. Hundreds of citations were written last year, with most of them related to parking violations, Vasquez added. In March, just before the summer months hit, the Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors approved new parking violation fees for the lake to try to get the problem under control. A $35 ticket has since been hiked up to $100 for the first offense, and $200 for the second. The county has also gone on to install dozens of 'No Parking' signs along Pinecrest Lake Road to deter people from leaving their vehicles on the roadsides. 'People were looking at a $35 citation as an acceptable tradeoff. We need to create a psychological deterrent,' Vasquez said. Kirk, along with other supervisors, are keen about increasing the first offense penalty to $250 if parking issues persist. While staff has tried to crack down on the parking dilemma, furious locals have called for more beach patrols and rule enforcement at the lake. So far this summer, Geiszler said she has seen a lack of staffing at the lake - something she attributes to the recent cuts to federal land workers. Pinecrest Lake is under the supervision of the U.S. Forest Service, an agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture. President Donald Trump has slashed U.S. Forest Service operations and funding for National Forest management by about $800 million. Shawn Winstead, the district ranger for the Forest Service's Sugar Pine District, said two staffers are assigned to patrol Pinecrest and clean the bathrooms there. Locals, including Geiszler, said that there are not at all enough employees to take care of the area. She recalled the approximately six bathrooms looking 'absolutely disgusting' during Memorial Day Weekend. 'You can't just have one or two people patrolling the beach every weekend with all those people,' she added. According to Vasquez, staffing in his office has increased over the past year and he is making sure his deputies are prioritizing calls from Pinecrest this summer to try and crack down on the mayhem. 'I stand behind everyone's constitutional rights to access that land, but we were receiving astronomical amounts of complaints about overcrowding and illegal parking,' he said. While many locals have brought up implementing restrictions across the park and lake at local town hall meetings, Winstead said the county has not decided on that just yet. 'Right now, we're not looking at restricting access in any way. We're trying to keep everything open for everybody,' he explained. 'But if there were some kind of restriction in that area, we'd have a carrying capacity and that would affect everybody — cabin owners, visitors, everybody.' Kirk said they have also considered bringing in metered parking spaces into the beach area, installing a gated tollbooth at the entrance that would not allow cars in when capacity is reached, and offering a parking shuttle to the beach. 'There are a lot of potentials. We'll have an evaluation after this summer,' Kirk said.
San Francisco Chronicle
05-07-2025
- San Francisco Chronicle
This California lake is seeing ‘apocalyptic' overcrowding — and officials are cracking down
A drowning. Heavy traffic. Trash everywhere. Cars parked in fire lanes. Fistfights on the beach. Last summer at bucolic Pinecrest Lake was rough. The scenic getaway, tucked in a forested granite basin in Tuolumne County off of Highway 108, has been a summertime escape for generations of Bay Area and Central Valley residents — some of whom own cabins at the lake. There's a market and restaurant, a marina that rents pontoon party boats, an amphitheater that shows movies under the stars, a campground and a wide sand beach. Like other outdoor destinations in Northern California that have seen surges in visitation since the pandemic, Pinecrest becomes overcrowded and unmanageable on busy summer weekends, as thousands of people pack the beach. 'There have been some apocalyptic weekends,' said Tuolumne County Supervisor Anaiah Kirk, whose district includes Pinecrest. Parking spaces fill up early, traffic backs up onto the highway, and the single road to the lake becomes jammed with cars parked illegally on the shoulders. At the beach, people flaunt the rules by smoking pot, firing up barbecue grills and letting dogs run around off-leash, while hard-bottom boats motor through the swim area. Some people camp illegally on the sand. Bathrooms are covered in graffiti. Law enforcement is scarce, some property owners say. The chaos used to hit mostly on holiday weekends, but now it's becoming more frequent, according to some residents. 'Personally, I rarely go to the lake on weekends anymore because we know what a mess it is,' said Martha Geiszler, a Los Gatos resident who owns a cabin near the lake and manages the Friends of Pinecrest group on Facebook. 'There's very little visitor information given and very little law enforcement presence, so every rule is broken.' This summer, after an off-season of public discussion, the county is laying in new measures to curb nuisance behavior. But if they don't work, a round of stricter rules and regulations would probably follow that would make it harder for locals and visitors to access their favorite lake. 'I'm ready to go full-bore and do a lot more things,' Kirk said. 'But we're slowing down and going to implement a few things at a time.' Cracking down on illegal parking seemed like the obvious place to start, Kirk said. Last summer had at least a few emergencies when ambulances could barely navigate the morass of unattended cars gumming up the sides of Pinecrest Lake Road, according to Tuolumne County Sheriff David Vasquez. Sheriff's deputies wrote hundreds of citations at the lake last year, mostly related to parking violations, he said. In March, the Tuolumne County Board of Supervisors approved a fee hike for parking violations by the lake. What was a $35 ticket is now $100 for a first offense and $200 for a second offense. Also, the county redesignated a stretch of Pinecrest Lake Road as a fire lane and has installed dozens of new 'No Parking' signs on the roadsides. 'People were looking at a $35 citation as an acceptable tradeoff,' Vasquez said. 'We need to create a psychological deterrent.' Some supervisors, including Kirk, have said they'd like to increase the penalty for a first offense to $250. That could happen if the parking issues continue this summer, Kirk said. Some locals would like to see more beach patrols and rule enforcement, but they say it's been a mixed bag so far this summer. The lake is under the purview of the U.S. Forest Service, and Geiszler says there's been a noticeable downturn in staffing, which she attributes to recent cuts to federal lands workers. Two workers with Stanislaus National Forest are assigned to patrol Pinecrest and clean bathrooms there, according to Shawn Winstead, district ranger for the Forest Service's Sugar Pine District who's currently on a temporary assignment elsewhere in Stanislaus National Forest. But some locals say that's not enough for a place overrun with summer visitors. On Memorial Day Weekend, the six or so bathrooms at the lake 'were absolutely disgusting,' Geiszler said. 'You can't have just one or two people patrolling the beach every weekend with all those people.' Vasquez said staffing at his office has been increasing over the past year and his deputies are prioritizing calls from Pinecrest this summer in an effort to tamp down disruptions and create a law enforcement presence at the lake. 'I stand behind everyone's constitutional rights to access that land,' Vasquez said, 'but we were receiving astronomical amounts of complaints about overcrowding and illegal parking.' A question that has come up in community town halls and county supervisors meetings is whether there should be a set carrying capacity at the lake — which both Supervisor Kirk and Sheriff Vasquez say might be worthy of further discussion. It would be a dicey proposition given that Pinecrest is on public land, but it has sparked all kinds of hypothetical solutions — from installing cement parking barriers in certain places to implementing the kind of controversial day-use reservation system in place at Yosemite National Park. 'Right now, we're not looking at restricting access in any way,' he said. 'We're trying to keep everything open for everybody. But if there were some kind of restriction in that area, we'd have a carrying capacity and that would affect everybody — cabin owners, visitors, everybody.' If issues at Pinecrest don't significantly improve this year, Kirk said, more changes are likely. Laying in metered parking spots in the beach area is an option. Installing a gated tollbooth at the entrance to the lake area that would turn cars away when parking fills up is another. Offering a parking shuttle to the beach from the paved lot at Dodge Ridge Mountain Resort, about 4 miles away, could help as well. 'There are a lot of potentials,' Kirk said. 'We'll have an evaluation after this summer.'
