Mountain drivers frustrated by leaf-peeping “ding dongs”

Drivers parked illegally on mountain roads trying to glimpse Colorado’s changing leaves this month have caused hours of backed-up traffic and poor driving conditions, frustrating everyone from mountain residents and law enforcement to the leaf-peeping visitors themselves.

“[Guanella Pass] is beautiful, it’s gorgeous, stunning. If you park on the side of the road where there is not room to park, I hope you stub your toe really hard,” TikTok user Laura Von Sonnenschein said in a video posted Sunday. “You are robbing us of autumn joy because you have turned Guanella Pass into an undrivable, one-lane road with no park rangers or traffic control.”

In the video’s caption, Von Sonnenschein called out drivers for being “a buncha ding dongs on the road.”

The video shows slow and unmoving traffic as drivers attempt to squeeze past each other on the narrow roadway, made narrower by illegal parking.

“If you want to save three hours of your life waiting in traffic, avoid visiting Guanella Pass this weekend,” Dawn Wilson said Sunday on Facebook. “Several areas of the road are gridlocked because of people parking half on the narrow roadway, making a few sections into one-lane roads for the two-way traffic. Colors looked great, though.”

“Tried Guanella pass this morning at 9 a.m. and traffic [was] parked on both sides of the road blocking all traffic about two miles in,” Gregory Knapp wrote in another post on Facebook. “Complete sh*t show!”

Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Jenny Fulton said the sheriff’s office is responsible for traffic enforcement on both Guenalla Pass and Highway 103 — another popular leaf-peeping destination — but how often deputies can patrol the areas depends on other calls.

“It’s really challenging because Guanella Pass and (Colorado) 103 are a couple of the closest areas people from the metro go to look at the leaves changing,” Fulton said. “The traffic poses a challenge to all of our communities.”

Deputies can’t tow illegally parked cars, even if they’re partially blocking the roadway, but they can and will slap drivers with a citation and hefty fine.