Where does Fresno go to hike and party during coronavirus pandemic? This dead-end road
Picture living on a fairly remote dead-end street built alongside a sprawling reservoir with easy access to state park facilities and hiking trails.
Sound peaceful and serene? Not to the residents of Sky Harbour Road near Millerton Lake, the unwitting hosts of Fresno’s biggest coronavirus party.
Cars lining both sides of a narrow road for hundreds of yards, ignoring no-parking signs, blocking driveways and blaring music? Check.
Empty beer containers, condom wrappers and garbage strewn throughout the neighborhood? Check. Human defecation topped with toilet paper left in plain sight? Check.
Speeding cars and motorcycles with noisy tailpipes? Drivers making illegal U-turns at blind corners? People partying in their vehicles at all hours and becoming confrontational when approached? Security camera footage of trespassers suspiciously casing homes?
Check, check, check and check.
Those living along Sky Harbour Road have complained about these problems for years. Enough for Fresno County to perform a traffic volume report in 2018 and for Assemblyman Jim Patterson to facilitate a series of meetings between residents, local law enforcement and California State Parks rangers in 2019.
But the crowds and parties have only gotten larger during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite explicit government instructions to stay home or shelter in place.
“It’s our ongoing nightmare,” longtime resident Doreen Carter said, “and each week it gets worse.”
“We’re just exhausted — we’re tired of the nonsense,” added Daniel Agbogidi, who moved to the neighborhood in 2018.
Sky Harbour Road branches north off Millerton Road next to the Table Mountain Casino. It runs 6 miles over hilly terrain until dead-ending at the South Finegold Picnic Area on the northeastern shoreline of Millerton Lake, where the serpentine-like arm of the San Joaquin River feeds into the main body of water.
There isn’t much to the South Finegold Picnic Area. Just a parking lot that seldom gets used — most visitors avoid the $5 fee by parking outside the gate — a stinky restroom and a few picnic tables. Depending on the time of year, the waterline can either be nearby or a bit of a hike.
What makes the area attractive is the presence of the San Joaquin River Trail, which runs 14.5 miles between South Finegold and the San Joaquin River Gorge Recreation Area outside Auberry. Hikers and mountain bikers have also created numerous spur trails that ascend nearby Pincushion Peak.
‘Long history of being a party spot’
There’s another type of crowd that likes to come out here. The type that drives to what they think is a secluded, out-of-town spot in order to drink and use drugs. One turnout is known by locals as “Condom Court” for … well, obvious reasons.
In September 2018, hours before killing Clovis Unified administrator Gavin Gladding in a fatal hit-and-run collision, Rogelio Alvarez Maravilla and his girlfriend were drinking at an impromptu party on Sky Harbour Road, according to court documents.
“That place has a long history of being a party spot,” Fresno County Sheriff’s spokesperson Tony Botti said.
No group bears the brunt of that more than those living on Sky Harbour Road and a couple adjacent cul-de-sacs near the South Finegold Picnic Area. Billed by developers as “the last lakefront property in California,” the first homes out there were built in the mid-1960s. Today there are about 45 of them.
Residents say they chose the area because they wanted peace and quiet and a respite from urban life. And for a while, it was precisely that. But in recent years, as increasing numbers “discovered” the place, crowds and safety have become more of an issue.
Things have gone from bad to worse in recent weeks thanks to the temperate spring weather and collective cabin fever felt by the combined populace of Fresno and Clovis.
At a time when national parks and forest recreation sites are closed, and vehicle access is barred at both Fresno County parks as well as those within the city of Fresno, the trails off Sky Harbour Road are some of the last in the region accessible to the public.
Officially, the Millerton Lake State Recreation Area is closed to vehicular access. An April 8 update on the park’s website reads: “The park remains open for locals provided they practice safe, physical distancing of 6 feet or more and are visiting the parks near their primary residences. This is not the time for a road trip to a destination or beach.”
‘It’s horrifying’ Sky Harbour residents say
By all accounts, hundreds per day aren’t heeding those words. Stay home? Shelter in place? Not for this crowd.
“At least 500 or 600 cars came in Sunday, and this is a little country road,” said Carter, who has lived on Sky Harbour for 14 years.
“It’s horrifying. We’ve got car clubs coming in. There’s 25 or 30 from the Mustang club, along with Harley-Davidson and every other group of people. This area has become an internet phenomenon, you know … the place to go when everywhere else is shut down. This was a problem before all this stuff. Now it’s even worse.”
That “500 or 600” number isn’t an exaggeration. In 2018, Fresno County performed a traffic study that showed 437 and 544 cars entering Sky Harbour Road on a Saturday and Sunday, respectively, in mid April.
Residents say the crowds have only gotten larger since. Last weekend, there were so many cars, many of them disregarding no-parking signs posted on one side of the street, that two state park rangers were dispatched to do traffic control and write parking tickets. A ranger was also seen writing tickets Tuesday.
Due to its remote location and jurisdictional vagueness, issues along Sky Harbour Road are not easily addressed. Road incidents are the responsibility of the California Highway Patrol. Crime is the responsibility of the Fresno County Sheriff. State Parks, meanwhile, is responsible for the picnic area and trails. (Rangers also have the authority to write parking tickets with significantly larger fines than those issued by the sheriff or CHP.)
“It’s kind of a hot potato back there,” Botti said.
Minor changes require ‘hard push’
Agbogidi and other residents would like to see a gate installed near the Table Mountain Rancheria Police Station and staffed by a ranger who would collect use fees and limit visitor access to normal park hours.
That may not be realistic, however, primarily due to a lack of funding at Millerton Lake State Recreation Area. Last spring, following a series of meetings between Assemblyman Patterson, residents and local law enforcement, state parks reluctantly agreed to open and maintain the South Finegold Picnic Area year-round. Parking fees were reduced to $5 in an attempt to discourage visitors from parking on the street.
“I can’t even tell you how hard we had to push state parks in order for them to budge a little on this,” said Ian Coolbear, a Patterson aide.
(Officials at Millerton Lake did not return my calls. Instead, I was contacted by a state parks information officer in Sacramento who had never been to Millerton Lake.)
“The rangers are horrible,” said Carter, the longtime resident. “They won’t even talk to you. Nobody wants to take responsibility for this place.”
Meanwhile, Fresno’s biggest pandemic free-for-all rolls on.
This story was originally published April 22, 2020 at 1:14 PM.
