The Overlook Trail abounds with wild mushrooms! Take your own visual treasure hunt; they’re everywhere…. But of course, as with everything on our trail systems and wild areas, leave them undisturbed. Mushrooms can be deadly if consumed.
Grateful
A rafter of wild turkeys relaxing on Montini Open Space Preserve last evening, fate working in their favor another year.
Happy Thanksgiving to you all; we hope to see you on the trail during this very lush, thriving time on Montini and the Overlook!
•SOLD OUT• FREE Guided Hike at the Overlook!
THIS EVENT HAS SOLD OUT!
Stay tuned for information on our Spring hike….
In honor of Autumn, please join us for a very special, moderately paced hike at Sonoma Overlook Trail, guided by former SOT leader Joanna Kemper, on Saturday, November 1, 2025, at 11 am. We’ll linger at the top to enjoy sweeping views over the valley, bay and down to San Francisco.
Meet us at the main trailhead kiosk. Rain cancels the guide, but makes the trail even more special….
Don’t hesitate: SPACE IS LIMITED!
┏(-_-)┛┗(-_- )┓┗(-_-)┛┏(-_-)┓
SIGN UP!
Our Current Overlook Trail Renewal Campaign
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:
- 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!).
- 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.
The Great Wall of Montini
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
Sonoma Overlook Trail • Montini Open Space Preserve 