Leaf-Peeping Permit Lottery Draws 40,000 Applicants for 200 Parking Spots at Miller’s Overlook

MILLERS FALLS — The Cedar County Leaf-Peeping Permit Lottery closed at midnight Sunday with 40,000 applications for 200 parking spots at Miller’s Overlook, the county’s most photographed patch of maples, officials confirmed, describing the 200-to-1 odds as “about right for foliage.”

“We wanted a system that was fair, transparent, and spiritually consistent with autumn itself — brief, beautiful, and over before you can fully enjoy it,” said Brenda Puckett, self-appointed Director of Festive Morale and chair of the overlook commission. Winners receive a laminated dashboard placard, a 90-minute viewing window, and what Puckett called “a dignified, unhurried foliage experience,” which county documents define as “no running, no drone, no picnicking with more than four cheeses.”

Applicants paid a $12 nonrefundable entry fee, raising $480,000, of which officials say $31,000 will fund actual overlook maintenance and the remainder will fund “foliage-related morale initiatives,” including a bronze plaque honoring the 2019 peak, widely considered the best peak.

Losers were not entirely empty-handed. All 39,800 non-winners received a consolation email containing a stock photo of the overlook taken in 2021 and a coupon for 15 percent off cider donuts, redeemable only on Tuesdays at a farm stand 40 minutes away. “Honestly the photo is from our best year,” said Tom Renshaw, the county’s Foliage Forecast Liaison. “Most winners would kill to see 2021 colors again.”

The commission defended the lottery against charges that 200 spots is “artificially scarce,” noting that the overlook’s gravel lot physically holds 214 cars but that 14 spaces are reserved for the commission’s own vehicles, a leaf-blower trailer, and “one ceremonial gourd.” A proposal to add a second viewing shift was tabled after Puckett warned that “leaf-peeping after 4 p.m. is just tree-looking, and tree-looking is free.”

Winners will be notified by mail, since Puckett “doesn’t trust email with something this important.”

The drawing itself was conducted Saturday at the county fairgrounds, where Puckett drew 200 placards from a bingo cage while a local high school marching band played what she called “something autumnal” for three hours. The event was livestreamed to 11,000 viewers, most of whom, Puckett noted, “watched other people win parking, which is its own kind of foliage experience — the foliage of disappointment.” A support group for non-winners, “Overlooked at the Overlook,” now meets Thursdays at the library.

One winner, retiree Frank Dombrowski, described his 90-minute window as “the finest hour and a half of my autumn.” “I saw a red maple so red it looked photoshopped,” he said. “I sat on the bench. I breathed. At minute 88, a volunteer tapped my shoulder and said ‘wrap it up, Frank.’ I wrapped it up. Worth every penny of the $12.” The commission is considering expanding next year’s lottery to 220 spots, pending what Puckett called “a structural review of the ceremonial gourd’s parking needs.”