Emily Markstein, a rock climber and skier who has lived and worked in the Sierra resort town of Mammoth Lakes for seven years, opens the large sliding doors and welcomes strangers into her home.
One of the gleaming multimillion-dollar mansions nestled among pine trees and granite peaks in this exclusive mountain enclave? Not exactly.
Markstein, who has a master’s degree in historic preservation and has trained to ski, teach yoga, trim trees and wait tables at one of the fanciest restaurants in town, lives in a 2006 GMC van.
A rare sign of new home sales in the Eastern Sierra town of Bishop.
Like other adventure-seekers drawn to California’s remote and remote Eastern Sierra, Markstein, 31, initially embraced the “van life” after scrolling through social media posts that made him seem both happy and glamorous. He continues because he loves it, he says, but also because, even in this vast and open space, there is almost nowhere else for people to work.
Official statistics are hard to come by, but Markstein spitballs the percentage of hourly workers in Mammoth Lakes who live in cars and vans as “less than 50 but more than 20.” At every place he’s worked since moving here, he says, “there’s been at least two people living in the van.”
Like many others, they try to hide the unpleasant truth from tourists so as not to spoil their fantasy of escaping to a trouble-free mountain paradise. But it takes effort.
“I have to be a good foodie, like, I know my wine and I know good food,” he says with a simple and infectious ease. “But you haven’t showered in a week and a half and you’re putting on deodorant, and all this spray, trying to make yourself look like you don’t live in your car.”
“During COVID, I bathed in the river,” Emily Markstein said of her van life. “Now, I play at my friends’ houses for a weekly shower.”
Understanding the acute housing shortage in the wild and sparsely populated area — there are about four people per square mile in Mono County and fewer than two per square mile in neighboring Inyo County — can be hard to wrap your head around.
It is due, in large part, to the fact that more than 90 percent of the land is owned by conservation-minded government agencies: the US Forest Service, the Federal Bureau of Land Management and, most controversially, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
A large, far-flung bureaucracy has no interest in making land available to a rapidly growing number of outdoor enthusiasts — hikers, climbers, skiers, fly-rod anglers — flocking to a mostly unspoiled part of California near the Nevada border.
So, if there is a piece of private land or a house that is already on the market, there is usually a long line of professionals who can do it and will be Airbnb investors from coastal cities who are ready to drive out prices that are unattainable even for the most diligent. working people. As a result, important workers are left out in the cold.
“It’s always been an issue here,” Mammoth Lakes Mayor Pro Tem Chris Bubser said. But it has gotten worse since the pandemic, when many well-paid professionals find they can work from anywhere, and many long-term rental units have turned into Airbnbs to accommodate them.
An artist captures the scenery of the Buttermilk Country in the Inyo National Forest.
Now, Bubser says, the lack of affordable housing is a full-blown crisis, making it nearly impossible for hourly workers, and even some salaried professionals, to keep a traditional roof over their heads.
Last year, the school made job offers to four teachers, but three had to say no because they couldn’t find a place to live, Bubser said.
“Our community is hollowing out, and it’s going to be catastrophic down the line,” Bubser said. “We want people to come and build families in this amazing place. It would be a shame if it’s not for everyone.”
The economy of the resort towns, where the tourists play and most of the local hustle and bustle seekers, has been working hard for decades. It’s the same in ski towns throughout the American West: Lake Tahoe, Vail, Aspen, Park City.
But the Eastern Sierra housing situation extends beyond the borders of Mammoth Lakes.
With all the open space, there is still nowhere to live in the Eastern Sierra because a large portion of the land is owned by government agencies.
A 40-minute drive south on US 395 descends more than 3,000 vertical feet to the floor of the Owens Valley and fills the windshield with one of the most sweeping and expansive views in the country. The snowy peak descends to a steep granite wall. The wall descends to lush green pastures. The pastures give way to the high desert that stretches into the horizon.
The most breathtaking part? In all the open space, there is still no place to live.
“It’s just crazy,” said Jose Garcia, the mayor of Bishop, a dusty intersection of about 3,800 people down the hill.
Garcia has lived in Bishop for 35 years and has watched the once-sleepy ranching outpost explode in popularity with adventurous tourists: hikers and climbers in the summer, anglers and leaf-peepers in the fall, skiers in the winter. Tourism is the biggest industry, he said.
“Bishop will be like Santa Monica,” if the city has room to grow, Mayor Jose Garcia said his city. “People will come from everywhere because of the beauty of this place.”
But in all the time there, “the city has not grown at all,” Garcia said.
That’s because almost all the land in and around Bishop is owned by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Garcia said.
More than a century ago, when it became clear that the booming metropolis 300 miles to the south would soon dry up its own water supply, agents spread across the Owens Valley, buying up every acre they could find to secure the rights to the precious snowmelt that flowed down from mountains every spring.
Currently, the DWP owns about 250,000 hectares in Inyo County, where Bishop is located.
“We are basically landlocked,” said Garcia exasperated through the cafe earlier this month, as the soft morning light bathed the mountains in every direction.
California has dozens of peaks higher than 14,000 feet; trailheads leading to 11 people in about an hour from where he sat.
“Bishop will be like Santa Monica” if the city has room to grow, he said. “People will come from everywhere because of the beauty of this place.”
A City of Los Angeles private property sign is dissuading would-be campers outside of Bishop.
Adam Perez, DWP’s top manager in Owens Valley, said it’s easy to point the finger at the agency and blame it for stagnation. But the DWP manages the land responsibly, he said. The overarching mission remains the same — to deliver water to Los Angeles — but the department is working hard to become more than “a bully trying to push people around,” he said.
The agency allows hiking, hunting, fishing and camping on most of its land, he said.
And if you’re lucky enough to own one of those existing homes, he says, you might be glad to see that incredible view won’t be spoiled by the “big house canal” that runs through the middle of it. .
“You’re definitely going to have a protected view,” Perez said.
If Perez is at the top of the local pecking order, the young climbers who flock to Bishop from around the world to train on the world-class crags of Buttermilk Country and the Owens River Gorge are near the bottom.
Mammoth Gear Exchange, a used sporting goods store on the corner of Bishop’s main intersection, is a local landmark and a regular haunt for hikers. On a recent Sunday morning, some store employees agreed with at least some of what Perez said: They love that Bishop remains remote and that has not succumbed to suburban sprawl as it has been climbing Meccas near Denver and Boulder.
But all of them have spent a long time living in a van, even if they decided to give up the cruising life of a hard-core travel climber and try to put down roots.
One, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Peter, to avoid attracting the attention of parking enforcement, said he has been living in a van since making the trek from Ohio to California 2½ years ago. his girlfriend lives with him.
He’s in no rush to start paying rent, he said, but he doesn’t need a plea to finish his list of hardships.
Houses on the right, pastures on the left, and open space outside the town of Bishop Eastern Sierra.
“When you’ve lived at home all your life, you don’t know how much you value your own space,” he says, choosing his words carefully. Forget about getting anything delivered from Amazon.
“It seems like the whole system is set up” for people living at home, he said, “like, you have to have a permanent address.”
He sounded almost mystical when his thoughts turned to the comforts of indoor plumbing. “Just have warm water to wash your hands if you want,” he said. “Like, you just turn the dial.”
Up the mountain in Mammoth, Markstein’s description of van life also often revolves around plumbing problems.
“During COVID, I bathed in the river,” he said, as social distancing requirements made invitations to use indoor bathrooms difficult to follow. “Now, I play at my friends’ houses for a weekly shower.”
Then, knowing how ignorant the audience is, he added: “For many people it’s very dirty, but for people who live in vans it’s normal.”
During his time as a tree trimmer, he estimates that about 70% of the properties he works on are vacant because of unoccupied second homes or Airbnbs. This is very “frustrating” for people who work, live in vans, he said.
But maybe there is no frustration for van lifers, or occupying as big a chunk of bandwidth every day, as the question of where to find a toilet.
At one point, some of his friends worked at an organic coffee shop on Jalan Utama called Stellar Brew. It’s comfortable, welcoming vibe. Word spreads fast. Not long ago, Markstein said, he would go out in the morning and see “10 vans lined up” in the parking lot.
The inside joke is: “Have stellar poo in Stellar Brew.”
Working as a tree trimmer, Emily Markstein saw second homes and Airbnbs sitting empty. It’s “frustrating” for people who work, live in vans, he said.
The store’s general manager, Nikki Lee, has nothing but sympathy and praise for the van lifers.
Housing conditions are so precarious for people working in Mammoth, Lee said, he prefers job candidates who live in vans. Their lives are more stable than those who fight the almost always losing battle of trying to stay in an apartment in a city where the rent often tops $4,000 a month and keeps rising.
The store’s current full-time baker, who used to be a kindergarten teacher, lives in the van, Lee said.
“I’ve never been a barrier to renting,” says Lee, “because I know that people who live in vans, they can make a commitment to stay.”
