The weekend collision of President’s Day and Valentine’s Day brought record sales and lines of cars that snaked slowly through West Marin in volumes longtime residents have never witnessed before. Commutes along the usually speedy stretch of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard from Inverness to Point Reyes Station at times on Sunday took as long as anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half.
“I’ve never, ever seen such traffic,” said Elaine Connell, a weekender who has owned a house in Inverness for 25 years. “It was totally unremitting.”
In Inverness Park, volunteer firefighter and resident Burton Eubank set out in his truck to help set up a helicopter landing zone for a woman having stroke symptoms. Along the way, he passed the long, winding line of cars, which he described as the “worst I have seen in my lifetime growing up here.” Afterwards, he left his truck at the Inverness fire station and walked the few miles back home.
“I certainly have responded to calls on my bicycle, and would have had I known the traffic was so insane,” Mr. Eubank said. “There are not enough emergency personnel here in West Marin to accommodate that influx of tourists.”
Mr. Eubank and other locals pointed to the Point Reyes National Seashore’s tourist draw for the traffic backup, as well as a complete lack of signs and traffic controls that they feel the park should install.
In the seashore, congestion spiked at the Palomarin and Drakes Beach parking lots, both of which were closed at points over the weekend.
“Palomarin is getting an overabundance of visitation like we’ve never seen before,” said John Dell’Osso, the seashore’s spokesman. “They’re coming here from some search engine that sent them to ‘Palomarin,’ and I don’t think they know what they’re getting into.”
Mr. Dell’Osso tallied 5,000 visitors to the Bear Valley Visitor Center over the weekend, dwarfing the typical 800 or so that a normal busy summer day draws. He attributed the swarm in part to the unseasonably warm weather.
And while the park does post updates on traffic and parking lot closures through social media, Mr. Dell’Osso said, its staff are working on replacing informational signs at the Palomarin Trailhead and elsewhere that were vandalized many years ago, removed and never replaced.
“After this weekend, we need to reconvene and determine what to do in a more proactive way if we think that a weekend will bring more crowds,” Mr. Dell’Osso said.
Equally frustrating to West Marin residents were crowds in Stinson Beach.
“The congestion here is just unbearable,” said Terry Bryant, a nearly 20-year resident who said that from his porch he could see traffic gridlocked as far as two miles up Highway 1. “It’s been going on for years and years. It’s a really sad state of affairs.”
But while congestion plagued roadways, businesses thrived—none more so than the Cowgirl Creamery, which set a single-day record for sales on Valentine’s Day. The creamery topped record-breaking President’s Day weekend sales from last year by over 17 percent, clocking 175 more transactions.
Meanwhile, recent storms that flooded low-lying areas prevented at least one business from profiting from the busy weekend—the Olema Campground. Though completely booked over the weekend, floodwaters that have persisted on the campground for weeks made it impossible to rent out 80 of the total 185 sites.
“It really affects us,” said Gabi Bell, a manager at the campground. “I could have rented so many more sites out. People were fighting about the last tent sites.”
Still others were enlivened by the swarm, including Gary Fine, the Palace Market’s store director, who said he sold “a lot” of roses.
“We made a lot of lovers happy,” he said.