Forest, parks services urge COVID safety this holiday weekend
Administrators for the U.S. Forest Service and California State Parks Department are advising visitors to play COVID-SAFE when they get outdoors this weekend, which is the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday weekend.
In line with the current regional stay home order for Tuolumne and Calaveras counties, the Stanislaus National Forest is designated as part of the 12-county San Joaquin Valley region. Developed campgrounds are closed in the Stanislaus National Forest, as well as the Sierra and Sequoia national forests to the south, and nine other national forests in California.
“Some day-use sites remain open for the health and welfare of Californians,” regional administrators for the Forest Service, based in the Bay Area, said in a recent statement. “We urge all visitors to follow CDC guidelines to recreate responsibly and check with your local national forest before visiting.”
Outdoor recreation can be beneficial for your health but must be practiced safely, Forest Service administrators said. They recommend exercising close to home and complying with local, state and federal guidance and not traveling for recreation.
“We continue to recommend that you not travel long distances to recreate,” Forest Service administrators said. “If you or anyone in your household feels sick, please remain at home and plan your trip for another time. All visitors should practice selfsufficiency during your visits to a national forest.”
Recent crushes of visitors for snow play on the Highway 108 corridor have prompted Forest Service staff to urge people to park safely and pack out all their trash.
Simple actions like staying local, planning ahead, and follow
ing social distancing guidelines can enhance outdoor experiences for everyone, Forest Service and California State Parks administrators said Thursday.
Playing outdoors safely will help ensure day use areas in national forests and state parks currently remain open for the health and welfare of Californians.
The Forest Service and California State Parks are also coordinating with the California Department of Transportation, the California Highway Patrol, and various community organizations to keep 18 Sno-park sites in the Sierra Nevada open and functioning.
Sno-park sites are set up to provide parking for people trying to go sledding, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, and snowmobiling, and they are often among the most crowded parking areas on snowbound areas. Permits are required to park in designated Snopark area, including the one east of Strawberry on Highway 108.
Sno-park permits are daily and seasonal. Day permits cost $5 and are valid for one single day. Season permits cost $25 and are valid for the entire Sno-park season. More information can be found at https://ohv.parks.ca.gov/ SNOPARKS online.
Parking is on a first come, first-serve basis at all Sno-park sites, Forest Service staff said. Sno-park lots are filling up early each day. Make sure your vehicle is snow ready.
Road safety is vital and paramount, and it should be a top priority for all forest visitors. Some roads may be closed due to winter conditions.
“Illegal roadside parking only puts you, your family and other visitors at risk,” Forest Service staff said. “If the first approved parking area is full, please proceed to the next approved parking area. Please visit us another day if parking lots are full.”
King is the Africanamerican Baptist clergyman and Civil Rights leader who preached nonviolent protest and civil disobedience until he was assassinated at the age of 39 in April 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee by the white gunman James Earl Ray, a fugitive felon from Missouri State Penitentiary.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day is celebrated each year on the third Monday of January, to mark the date of King’s birth, Jan. 15, 1929. This year Martin Luther King Jr. Day is Monday, Jan. 18.
In the 1950s and 1960s, King participated in and led sit-ins, boycotts, demonstrations, and marches for the equality of black Americans and desegregation in southern Jim Crow states, where blacks were still facing a century of discrimination, segregation, and racially-charged violence, atrocities that had endured since the Civil War and what was supposed to be the end of slavery in the United States.
A hundred years after the end of the Civil War, King joined other black leaders and Civil Rights groups to stand up for African-americans and their rights to vote, labor rights, and other basic civil rights.
King led the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and later became the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference civil rights organization. As president of the SCLC, he led the Albany Movement in Albany, Georgia, and helped organize nonviolent protests in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. King also helped organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
King is remembered by many Americans as one of the nation’s and the world’s greatest leaders for standing up nonviolently and articulately to systemic, violent, racist discrimination targeting blacks and other minorities for their skin color. When King received the international Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, he hailed one of his role models, Indian resistance leader Mahatma Gandhi, who led nonviolent protests and civil disobedience to challenge the rule of the colonizing British Empire, gaining India’s independence from British rule in 1947.