Trail of the week: Lower Tubbs Island in San Pablo Bay
Everyone should visit Lower Tubbs Island at least once, if for no other reason than to say you’ve seen it. Without a dedicated trail such as this to follow, it’s hard to get the same kind of up close look at the shoreline of San Pablo Bay or the camouflaged sloughs and tidal marshes that emanate north.
Those of us who drive past Sears Point along busy Highway 37 also miss the long view that puts Sonoma’s rolling hills and farmers’ fields into geological perspective and gives birdwatchers a smorgasbord of shorebirds to gawk at.
Whether you will want to visit often is another story. The 8-mile round-trip requires a serious commitment of time and effort before you reach the bay, 2.75 miles south of the parking area. The return trip seems even longer because of the flat, unshaded dirt trail that at times disappears beneath waist-high grasses and at other times is so filled with muddy tire ruts that it is difficult to navigate.
The payoff for making what can at times feel like a very long slog is the 2.5-mile loop that follows the waterline to Midshipman Point and then circles north around the marshlands that form the Lower Tubbs Island Bird Sanctuary. Reports of an impassable section kept us from completing the loop.
The island is part of the 13,000-acre San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge that stretches between the Petaluma and Napa rivers. Historically, it was used as a club for duck hunters, protected by levees that could be opened with the tides to release salt water into the sloughs.
In 1969, it was purchased by the Nature Conservancy, and in 1978, it was turned over to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Once the levees were breached on Lower Tubbs Island, the natural marshes returned.
On a recent Sunday, we amused ourselves along the trail to the bay by watching a farmer plow his field to the east, scaling the plant-covered berm that separates the trail from Tolay Creek and identifying objects we found in the dirt, most of them man-made. We found bent rebar, rock-sized pieces of blue-painted cement, shards of ceramic pipe, lengths of PVC pipe and even a few shell casings, although the entire National Wildlife Refuge is off-limits to hunters. The highlight of our trek was an old pumping station at about 1.5 miles.
We also spotted egrets, red-tailed blackbirds, a hawk that appeared to be nesting in nearby weeds, a flock of sandpipers knee deep in the surf and, unfortunately, a few hungry mosquitoes.
Next time we will bring our bikes, hit the trail early in the day and pack binoculars so we can spend more time focused on the stars of this show.
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