Trail work kicks off on Taylor Mountain

Sonoma County’s latest bid to speed the expansion of its regional parks system through public-private partnerships kicked off Wednesday, when roughly a half-dozen volunteers gathered at the new park on Taylor Mountain overlooking Santa Rosa to begin constructing more than 15 miles of trails across the 1,100-acre open space.

“Good morning, welcome to Taylor Mountain,” said Ken Wells, executive director of Sonoma County Trails Council, a nonprofit that has joined with Sonoma County Regional Parks to engineer and construct the trail network. “You all are part of the first trail work day, and you’ll be building our brand-new trails.”

Volunteers donned work gloves, some tightened their boots, and the group set out on the southern slope of the mountain that parallels Petaluma Hill Road - shovels, rakes and pickaxes in hand.

The work is the next phase in a two-?decade-long effort to set aside Taylor Mountain as a public preserve. The county’s Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District assembled most of the acreage between 1995 and 2005 for $21 million. After years of permitted access, the park opened to general use early last year.

Now the county and its partners have begun making key improvements, including the expanded trail network, a 60-space parking lot, public restrooms, a children’s play area, a picnic area and fencing. The planned trailhead, accessible from Petaluma Hill Road just past Yolanda Avenue, will connect with Taylor Mountain’s existing 4 miles of hiking and equestrian trails.

Work on the parking lot is set to begin next month and be completed by the end of the year. Much of that project is being funded by a $750,000 state grant. The county Open Space District is also providing $225,000 to open Taylor Mountain to the public and support three years of operations and maintenance. The project will also include lane widening and a turn lane on Petaluma Hill Road, funded with $150,000 in impact fees from the county’s Department of Transportation and Public Works.

The trail work will be staged over the next five years, with initial efforts this year focused on building the first mile of new trail. A work day on Sept. 27, which is National Public Lands Day, will seek to draw around 60 volunteers to finish the mile-long trail started this week. Progress on the rest of the network will depend on volunteers and fundraising.

“We’re excited this is getting off the ground,” Wells said. “Today, we’ll be cutting dirt to get ready for the big volunteer day in September.”

The park’s development is part of a broader goal advanced by the Board of Supervisors to accelerate opening up county lands acquired for public open space. The move comes after many of the properties purchased by the county’s taxpayer-?supported Open Space District sat in limbo for years, their public rollout delayed by the budget pains of state and county park systems unable to take on new acreage.

The county’s solution for Taylor Mountain and other sites was to allow limited access under a permit program overseen by LandPaths, a Santa Rosa-based nonprofit group.

Now, more than a year after opening to the general public, daily use of the park has shot up and supporters hope to ensure that continues.

Sarah Reid, a board member for the Trails Council who came out to volunteer Wednesday, said the trail effort marked a historic day for county parks. “It’s so important to keep this area, one of our landmark hillsides, green and accessible,” she said.

Michael Yares, a Petaluma resident who owns a small farm near Taylor Mountain, put his back into the trail work, hacking dirt steps into the hillside with a Pulaski -a hand tool that combines an ax and an adze.

“This is such a special and rare opportunity, to be the first to build this trail,” Yares said. “I love digging - there’s something about it. Being out here reminds me of my childhood digging in the dirt.”

The preserve is home to a range of natural habitats and wildlife, including mountain lion, deer, fox and even the rare, protected California red-legged frog. The new trail network will seek to protect that ecology and offer visitors, including people on foot, horseback and bikes, a fuller experience of the open space.

“It’s so beautiful out here,” Yares said. “It’s so great to be able to create something new for the public to use.”