Checking out beautiful fall leaves in Utah may cost you green

There could be a price to pay for those stopping to get a look at Utah’s beautiful fall colors over the next week or two.

On fall weekends at a few popular park city trailheads, visitors might face huge fines for getting out of their cars.

“It doesn't last very long. You know, we get an early frost and it's all over, especially if it's been a dry summer," said Heber City resident Michael Cohen of the leaves changing. "So you only have a few days that you can do it.”

In the middle of the day Monday, the Bonanza Flat trailhead parking lot was almost full.

“The drive up was just wonderful and the number of trees, yellow trees everywhere. It's just absolutely gorgeous. We just really love it," said South Jordan's John Weil.

But the crowds Monday were nothing compared to the number of cars flooding Guardsman Pass over the weekend.

“[We] parked for five minutes to go take some pictures and come back and sure enough ... we saw at least 6-8 cars in the lineup, ticketed,” explained Matt Townsend of Park City.

Of the dozens of cars Townsend saw parked illegally, some were fined more than $100.

“it seemed kind of silly to me that you couldn't park there because there was plenty of room," he said. "In the same breath, there's probably safety issues. It's a narrow road."

The city isn’t stopping people from using the trails on weekends, but it takes some planning in advance to get there.

“Everyone wants to be there. It's peaking, it's just a short moment in time every year. And so just gotta kind of pick good times to not be in the chaos,” explained Logan Jones, project manager for Park City Trails and Open Space.

Jones suggests people take advantage of buses or reserve a spot on Park City’s free Transit to Trails Shuttle, which runs Friday, Saturday and Sunday over the next three weekends.

He added that it’s illegal to park along the road.

“[It's a] really dangerous situation for anyone up there. And also, a complete inability for emergency services to reach the area,” Jones said.

Man hikers are going to do all their leaf-peeping during the week.

“We don't stop, we just ride up and continue up over the top and then come back down the road,” said Cohen.

“Oh, not after what I saw yesterday," exclaimed Townsend. "You couldn't get in!"

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