Category Archives: Trail Maintenance

Support Your Local Trail System!

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Filed under Stewardship, Fundraising, Trail Maintenance, Land Maintenance, Acts of Service

Tax Deductible DonationSince its inception, the Sonoma Overlook Stewards, an all-volunteer organization, make possible educational and interpretive materials, trail maintenance and improvements, and fundraising to support all Sonoma Overlook Trail concerns. The Overlook Trail relies on generous contributions from members of the community. Please lend your support!

To help fund our efforts with your tax deductible donation, send contributions to:

Sonoma Overlook Trail
Box 431
Sonoma, CA 95476

Or, donate HERE!

The Sonoma Overlook Trail partners with the City of Sonoma, which owns the land. For your tax-deductible donations, Sonoma Overlook Trail is fiscally sponsored by the Sonoma Ecology Center, a California non-profit 501(c)(3).

If you are interested in making a more substantial investment in Sonoma Overlook Trail, we would be delighted to speak with you. Please contact us at Hike@OverlookMontini.org.

The Upper Loop Project, Part 1

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Filed under Stewardship, Trail Maintenance

Before

For about 22 years, water created a ditch on the upper part of the Upper Loop of the Sonoma Overlook Trail and sent a creek down a “climbing turn” above the bench at the top of the trail, eroding it down to expose big rocks that are now well above the trail bed (see photo). Perhaps you know of it. Over the years, it became a complete mess. A shit-show, actually. I would hate to know what hikers and runners thought about it. I hated it. 

For years, I pondered what to do about it; then eventually, it hit me. I would break down the central rocks and simply take the trail straight up the center. But first I needed to deal with the drainage leading up to it, which was a real problem. This is because the water was flowing straight down the trail. Continue reading →

Our Current Overlook Trail Renewal Campaign

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Filed under Stewardship, Trail Maintenance

If you’ve been reading our posts here for any length of time, you know that I’m somewhat obsessed with trail smoothing. That is, removing rocks from the trail so that hikers, and more importantly, runners, don’t trip (I’ve take a few bad falls while running myself, so this is quite personal). But it’s also more than that. 

The badly ditched trail

We also very much need to regain control of water on the trail, which means removing ditching and regaining ,at minimum, a 5-degree outslope on the tread. So I’ve been on a campaign to do just that, and recently I’ve become enabled to take this campaign to the very top of the trail.

Two key things recently happened to make this possible:

  1. The City of Sonoma bought and delivered a pile of aggregate (Mayacama Red Pathway Fines Only, to be specific) to the top of the trail, going through a neighboring vineyard property with their very appreciated cooperation (thank you, Dan and Andrea Son!).
  2. In cooperation with the same vineyard property as well as City of Sonoma Public Works  (thank you Terence Erickson!), who kindly donated a 120-gallon water tank that was subsequently filled by the vineyard property staff, we now have everything we need to get serious about fixing the entire Upper Loop of the Sonoma Overlook Trail.

Continue reading →

The Great Wall of Montini

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Filed under Stewardship, Trail Maintenance

Recently, we’ve been redoubling our volunteer maintenance efforts at the Montini Preserve by instituting a monthly trail work day in association with staff from Sugarloaf Ridge State Park and Sonoma Ecology Center.

One of the jobs we wanted to tackle early on was a particularly sketchy spot that had narrowed from a rock falling out of the trail. This was just above a steep hill that if someone fell, they could really get hurt. On the first work day the team determined a wall, or more accurately a buttress, would need to be built up from some distance below the trail to support the trail and enable us to widen it safely. Continue reading →

Heavy Lifting

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Filed under Trail Maintenance

Moving boulders is a science

A hardy band of young men and women from California, Florida, Illinois and other states spent 12 weeks earlier this year solving hard problems — large sections of bare, rough rock in the Overlook trail bed.

As regular users know, the upper trail was closed between the Toyon Junction and the summit during the project. What went on beyond the “Trail Closed” tape? Every morning, a six-person crew from American Conservation Experience arrived around 7:30 a.m. from their campsite at Sugarloaf, did the daily stretch, and discussed the day’s plan. Then they hiked up to the site.

Continue reading →