As annular solar eclipse nears, Calif. county braces for tourism boom

It’s the only California county where the celestial phenomenon — when the moon passes between the sun and Earth to create a ring of fire — will be fully visible. The San Francisco Bay Area is expected to see between 80% and 90% of the eclipse. 

The 2023 annular solar eclipse will cross North America, Central America and into South America. In the United States, the eclipse begins at 9:13 a.m. in Oregon and will conclude just after noon local time in Texas. The last annular eclipse was in 2012, and the last total solar eclipse, wherein the moon completely blocks the sun, was in 2017. 

In Modoc, the cultural epicenter is Alturas, the county’s seat and its one incorporated city. It’s already seen an overt demand for accommodations. 

“Everything is pretty much full. The hotels in the town are full and even Airbnbs and Hipcamps. Our campgrounds are open, but I’m sure they’re busy and full,” Suzi Johnson, spokesperson for the Modoc National Forest, told SFGATE. 

Moreover, Johnson added that the county’s deer and waterfowl hunting seasons kicked off this month.

“If you’re out in the national forest, we ask visitors to be mindful of deer season,” she said. “Please wear bright clothing. Hunters are out in the forest too.”

All year, hotel rooms have been snatched up across the county. The Fort Bidwell Hotel, located some 50 miles northeast of Alturas, hasn’t had an open reservation in months. “We have been booked up since January,” Krystal Whittaker, the hotel’s assistant manager, told SFGATE.

At the Super 8 on Main Street in Alturas, the general manager said that demand for rooms started unexpectedly a few months ago. 

“It seems like people slept on it and then out of the blue, one day, people just started booking,” said Jimmy Jarrett. “We had 31 people book in the span of 24 hours. That’s not normal for us. We fill up constantly but it’s more gradual than that.”

Jarrett said that it looked as though the Alturas tourism industry was also blindsided by the eclipse, and was on a path to potentially miss out on a moment to capitalize on the influx of visitors. 

“I felt like I was Paul Revere — going around yelling, ‘There’s going to be an eclipse! There’s going to be an eclipse!’” Jarrett said. “I told the chamber of commerce people and nobody was doing anything about it. But now there are plans.”

The Modoc National Forest & Friends is hosting an eclipse viewing event at the Alturas Rotary Fields on Saturday. There’s a barbecue the night before from the Lion’s Club and a pancake breakfast from the Rotary Club to start the day of the eclipse. 

The partial eclipse begins just after 8 a.m. on Oct. 14, and annularity, or the maximum point of the eclipse, starts at about 9:19 a.m. It’s expected to last for two minutes. But those precious moments are enough to lure thousands to a quiet corner of California.

“We’re a county of about 9,000 — we’ll have more visitors than residents,” Jarrett said. “It’s going to be something else.”