Category Archives: Trail Maintenance

Overlook upper trail closed March 5-May 21!

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Filed under Events, Trail Maintenance

Trail closedHello SOT devotees! Heads up: the upper trail on Sonoma Overlook Trail, from the Toyon Trail connection and higher, is closed from March 5th through May 21st as a specialized crew undertakes some dearly needed trail bed maintenance. Some of the remaining rocky sections will be smoothed and additional sections of steps installed, so you can look forward to a much nicer cruise up the trail.

We invite you to continue to use the lower trail system, including Toyon and Rattlesnake trails, as well as Montini Open Space Preserve and other local trail systems. As a reminder, the Valley of the Moon trail on Montini loops up and back down to the main trail and includes luscious, sweeping views down to the Bay and along the Valley.

If you would like to contribute to our trail rehab fund, we’d be thrilled. Thank you!

The Cyclone and the Damage Done

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Filed under Fall, Trail Maintenance, Weather

Santa Rosa received more rain in three days than ever before in recorded weather history, and it seems likely that we had as much or more here in Sonoma. Given that, perhaps it should be surprising that we still have a trail. But I have a hard time not grieving for the havoc that the storm created.

I should point out that the hillside that the Overlook Trail traverses is essentially all rock. I’m reminded of this any time I try to dig up soil to put on the trail. My shovel is more likely to clang into stones than it is to sink into soil. This results in very little rain soaking into the ground—instead, it runs off. What water does sink into the soil only does for short distances, and it soon flows onto the trail which serves as a convenient exit from the rocky hillside.

And exit it did—in many locations and with great volume. On one section in particular, the water then plunged down the trail, blew through a couple small drains and scoured the trail for about 100 feet (see video below of one small section). This will take a lot of work and many wagonloads of aggregate to fix.

But yes, we already have a strong start to our winter rains. I just wish it would come in smaller increments, or over longer periods. Wish us luck.

All the Rocks You Never See

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Filed under Safety, Trail Maintenance

I work on the trail, or hike it, most days. Even as I’m hiking I’m inspecting it. I know the rockiest places, I know where there are roots. I’m even familiar with individual stones. Call me obsessed, but in the best possible way. But yes, still obsessed.

By now I’m sure you know (if you’ve ever read this blog in recent years) that as the Trail Maintenance Chair I’ve been focused on “trail smoothing” or “tread renewal.” Many of our recent monthly volunteer workdays have been mostly focused on this (see this time-lapse video of rebuilding a section for a taste). There’s a reason for that. For many years we volunteer stewards (including me) did not believe in tackling what I now call “rock work.” That is, taking out or chipping down rocks in the trail. And it started to show — often dramatically so. Entire stretches of trail became difficult to navigate, even for the nimble.

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Why We Do What We Do

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Filed under Stewardship, Trail Maintenance

IMG_4001I’ve long intended to bring my recent campaign of tread renewal/trail smoothing from the Overlook Trail to the Montini Preserve, and today I finally did. There had been a short section that I had had my eye on for quite some time, as it checked two big boxes for needing attention: 1) a really rocky and awkward trail, and 2) a section so awkward that hikers and runners had started a mini trail around the awkward part, thus needlessly widening the trail.

Therefore this morning I got our trail wagon out of our toolshed in the Mountain Cemetery, loaded up some buckets with aggregate, threw some tools and all the rest in the back of my SUV and headed up to the trail. Entering from Norrbom Road on Rattlesnake Cutoff, I pulled the wagon into the middle of the Montini Preserve to the section I wanted to fix.

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Rebuilding a Trail Segment

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Filed under Stewardship, Trail Maintenance

SnapShot-EditedThis morning six volunteer trail stewards met to rebuild two of our worst sections of trail on the Overlook. These sections are just below the top meadow and are rocky and difficult to traverse—particularly for runners. Prior to today, four wagonloads of packable gravel had been hauled up to the job site. Even so, we could have used more.

After about three hours of work we had rebuilt the two sections of trail to our satisfaction (at least for now, there are a few mop-up jobs left to finish off the segments).

In rebuilding these parts of the trail, we essentially went through several phases:

  1. Demolition: removal of rocks and boulders from the path (some of them quite large and deeply embedded).
  2. Rough-in: filling of holes from boulder removal with smaller rocks and large gravel; recreating the trail foundation.
  3. Final smoothing and sculpting: layering packable gravel and soil to create a smooth path and packing it down.
  4. Declaration of success and congratulations: The necessary acknowledgement of what was accomplished and kudos all around.

At the start of our work I had set up a time-lapse camera to capture a greatly sped up version of the morning, which I then edited into a less-than-five-minute video that ends up being slightly comical. I hope you enjoy it.