At Jenner Headlands Preserve, work begins to provide public access

Construction work is beginning next week on a parking lot, trailhead and other amenities needed to provide public access to the 5,630-acre Jenner Headlands Preserve, putting exploration of the coastal hillsides overlooking the Pacific Ocean nearly within reach of the average Joe. For free.

Still, it will be next spring before visitors are allowed unsupervised onto the rugged landscape that rises abruptly from the coastal shores just north of the Russian River estuary.

But the onset of work finally brings certainty to long-promised improvements like restrooms, parking and picnic sites that will make the headlands a viable sightseeing and hiking destination for the general public as well as a gateway to Sonoma County's highest coastal peak, Pole Mountain, looming just beyond.

“It's been one of the primary services that we all wanted to provide, is to see public access to this land and to Pole Mountain,” said Dave Koehler, executive director of the Sonoma Land Trust, which purchased both properties. Ownership of the Jenner Headlands Preserve has since been transferred to The Wildlands Conservancy, headquartered in San Bernardino County.

“It's just exciting to see it come about,” Koehler said. “The Sonoma Coast is this rugged icon of California, and people are going to be able to experience it.”

Planned infrastructure includes parking spaces for 30 passenger vehicles and two school buses near the site of an asphalt turnout at the edge of the property, located about a mile and a half north of Jenner. A day-use area with picnic tables, restrooms and a kiosk containing information about the property, its conservation heritage, protected wildlife, biodiversity and management is part of the 6-acre so-called Gateway Project, as well.

A key feature of the $2.1 million plan, a paved 400-foot trail accessible by wheelchair, will ensure that everyone, no matter their abilities, can reach a scenic overlook providing views of rolling coastal prairie, pockets of redwood and Douglas fir, oak woodland and rock outcroppings, and the sea-stack-studded waters of the Pacific just below.

Bill Keene is general manager of the tax-funded Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District, which put $10 million toward the $36 million purchase price of the Jenner Headlands and holds conservation easements over it and Pole Mountain.

He predicted the headlands preserve would become “one of the jewels of Sonoma County” once it's accessible to visitors.

“I think this is long anticipated, and people are super excited,” Keene said Wednesday, shortly after participating in a ceremonial groundbreaking at the site. “When I mention it, people look at me with gleaming eyes, like ‘Just say when, and I'm out there.' “

The 2009 Jenner Headlands purchase was the largest single land conservation deal by dollar amount in county history.

The 2014 purchase of 238 acres on and around Pole Mountain, which reaches 2,204 feet and provides commanding views in every direction, helped create more than 6,300 acres of connected wildlife habitat in conjunction with the headlands and the Sonoma Land Trust's 500-acre Little Black Mountain Preserve, which adjoins it.

Hundreds of people each year have visited the properties through guided tours during the extended period of planning, designing and gaining regulatory approvals for public access on sensitive coastal lands.

When it opens next spring, the Gateway Project will provide unfettered access to a 12-mile network of trails on the western part of the Jenner Headlands Preserve, as well as access to a 15-mile round-trip route reaching the top of Pole Mountain. Basically, the trails will take hikers from sea level to the highest point on the Sonoma Coast, Keene said.

“It's incredible,” Koehler said. “On a clear day you can see the Farallon Islands, Mount Tam, and even Mount Diablo on a super clear day. It's a top of the world experience up at Pole Mountain, and the cascading Sonoma Coast, right down to the ocean, that you see from there is just breathtaking.”

Brook Edwards, who manages the headlands preserve as Sonoma Coast regional director for The Wildlands Conservancy, said heavy equipment would be at work on the property by the middle of next week, Construction is expected to last about four months, followed by landscape planting that will be allowed to become established during the rainy season before public access is permitted.

The conservancy will be hosting a series of volunteer work days to help with the planting this fall, with guided hikes scheduled in the afternoons following each work session.

The agency also hopes to build a docent program for the preserve in the future, he said.

“We're excited, very excited,” Edwards said, “to finally be at this stage, to within the near future provide public access so people can come out here on their own, when the parking lot is open, so people can some out here and experience this place on their own.”

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.