Festival cleanup underway as music lovers leave valley

Coachella weekend one is a wrap and the cleanup is underway, as nearly 100,000 people head home. The mass exodus is backed up traffic from Indio all the way to Banning.

Many festival goers said they were dreading the drive home.

“Hopefully we’ll find a back road that will keep us off the freeway because it’s unbelievable,” said Gregory Golphin.

A car crash on I-10 set off a domino effect with a handful of other crashes in the westbound lanes throughout Monday.

No one got hurt but it took a while to get the traffic moving again.

“I got good friends that are going to drive. So I’m going to take a nap,” said Oliver Wyatt.

Gas stations were packed as well.

“We got all of our party supplies. We got pretty dehydrated this weekend. So gotta sit in the traffic. Last year it was three hours to get past the 10,” said Zach Vawter.

It’s not only a mess on the roads but at the camp sites on polo grounds as well.

It was a sea of trash and leftover tents.

Despite all of this, festival goers said it’s all part of the Coachella experience.

“We all expected it, so we just got to deal with it,” said Wyatt.

Many agreed the weekend turned out to be everything they hoped for.

“There were better guests and there were better acts on, so yeah it was fun,” said Ashli Templer.

And it’s only just begun, with more festival traffic to come as weekend two and Stagecoach approach.