no camping - El Portal Parkline 10pm-6am - $100 fine, new ordinance

Please be aware of the new county ordinance prohibiting camping at El Portal Parkline. $100 fine for violation. see attached.

Edit: Yes, ordinance passed in January 2021. Signs recently installed which allows enforcement and ticketing to proceed. Prior to signs, officers were making contact with campers and providing verbal warnings. Enforcement will continue. This is a courtesy warning.

lolz, I didn't realize you could camp there before the new ordinance.  

If there is an accident during the day at the climbing area and a vehicle is left unintentionally overnight would the person get hit by the fines?

via GIPHY

Woah woah woah OP, you weren’t stopping and standing there to take that picture, were you?

People will just fill the dozens of turnouts before EP and proceed to not be able to dig a proper cat hole there, either

My reading of this is that sleeping in your vehicle on the side of the road is now illegal in all of Mariposa County.  The “no parking” only applies to a specific section of 140 (for now), but I can’t imagine that they’ll turn a blind eye to the next pull-out filling up, and it seems to me they do have a law on the books to enforce there.

As a more occasional valley climber, I have no idea what the next legal(ish) spot for my van would be (I’ve parked in el portal in the past) and I was planning on heading down in October, so I suppose it’ll be a bit of an adventure figuring out where to park.

edit to add- Its a bummer but I get it.  30 sprinters stacked up every night and people shitting in the river wasn’t cool or sustainable. 

Well… it was a long time coming i suppose. Had a good 8 years of bivying there. Majority of climbers were low key and didn’t shit in the tree’s. But every once in a while someone would set up a tent and leave their stuff out all day. 

Will Jwrote:

My reading of this is that sleeping in your vehicle on the side of the road is now illegal in all of Mariposa County.  The “no parking” only applies to a specific section of 140 (for now), but I can’t imagine that they’ll turn a blind eye to the next pull-out filling up, and it seems to me they do have a law on the books to enforce there.

That is exactly how I understood it.

Amazed it took this long...

“The agreement ensures people experiencing homelessness will not be cited or arrested for sleeping outdoors when no shelter is available, and the city will continue to take steps to put every person experiencing homelessness in Boise on a path to permanent housing.”

https://www.cityofboise.org/news/mayor/2021/february/settlement-reached-in-groundbreaking-martin-v-boise-case/

Ackley The Improvedwrote:

“The agreement ensures people experiencing homelessness will not be cited or arrested for sleeping outdoors when no shelter is available, and the city will continue to take steps to put every person experiencing homelessness in Boise on a path to permanent housing.”

https://www.cityofboise.org/news/mayor/2021/february/settlement-reached-in-groundbreaking-martin-v-boise-case/

Can you explain how this is relevant to El Portal?

Ackley The Improvedwrote:

“The agreement ensures people experiencing homelessness will not be cited or arrested for sleeping outdoors when no shelter is available, and the city will continue to take steps to put every person experiencing homelessness in Boise on a path to permanent housing.”

I think this sort of ruling is good, it should not be illegal to be homeless, but to me it seems entirely unrelated to what's going on here; and more than that, conflating the two does a disservice to those in actual need.  The majority of people parked on 140 in El Portal are not homeless, and aren't lacking in alternative places to sleep.  They're there in pursuit of sports/hobbies, and some of them are there in $200k vans.  I think there are plenty of examples of people sleeping in vehicles out of necessity (you see this in abundance in most major west coast cities), but trying to relate that to this doesn't do anyone any good.

Parachute Adamswrote:

Can you explain how this is relevant to El Portal?

Since similar laws have been passed elsewhere specifically to target the homeless, they are probably trying to dispel that notion.

Cocoapuffs 1000wrote:

Since similar laws have been passed elsewhere specifically to target the homeless, they are probably trying to dispel that notion.

But that was in Boise. How is that relevant to El Portal? Who is "trying to dispel that notion"?

Too many entitled vansion owners are ruining lots of formerly low key spots IMO. Its a vansion revolution, trucker hats and all.

Ryan Never climbs wrote:

good job sleeping  in and f’ing it up for everyone else 

Bingo.

Y'all shoulda listened to the Honker.

So when do governments come up with a solution that isn’t “make it illegal” when they don’t know what to do about something?

Reefer.
booze 100 years ago
being homeless is still illegal in a lot of places

It probably sounds entitled but maybe the governments (local, state, and federal) should consider enabling shit instead of making it illegal. Like make a fucking parking lot with some pit toilets, charge 2 bucks a night for maintenance. Put up signs with directions to it. We’d be stoked instead of bummed like the current mood is

editing to add: with the way shits been going down there we deserved the fuck out of this. I’m just pissed the solution is making it illegal and it’s just going to send the problem to another town outside the gates

Jeff Lutonwrote:

It probably sounds entitled but…

Lol - no money for legal options, no willingness to find a cave somewhere - go pound sand.  Who are we not going to see in the park now - clueless entitled schmucks who wreck everything they encounter?  No loss, everything is too crowded now. I’m all for it.

The solution is crystal clear. El Portal needs a Walmart Super Store!! 

I've never understood why people prefer to use that entrance to begin with, nor do I understand the impulse to camp on the shoulder of a highway. I just don't get it.

Will Jwrote:

My reading of this is that sleeping in your vehicle on the side of the road is now illegal in all of Mariposa County.

No, that's only for county owned or managed land. Also that clause is not new; it was added in 2013: https://www.mariposacounty.org/DocumentCenter/View/31934/Ordinance-1101