Sarah Reid’s sixth grade classroom at Brook Hill Elementary in Santa Rosa had a south-facing window with a commanding view of Taylor Mountain.
Gazing daily at that 1,400-foot eminence, recalls Reid, who grew up to become a naturalist and legendary volunteer supporting parks and environmental programs in Sonoma County, “I saw it in so many different lights: in shadow, and sunlight, behind the clouds, peeking out from behind the fog.”
“I even saw snow on its peak that year.”
The latest incarnation of this beloved landmark, just south of Santa Rosa city limits, features an 8-mile network of new trails carefully cut into the northeastern flanks of the mountain, which opened its gates as a county regional park in 2013.
These new, multiuse pathways — fruits of the county’s largest park trail construction project in over a decade — open 450 previously inaccessible acres to hikers, bikers, and equestrians, roughly doubling Taylor Mountain’s trail network.
The new trails have been open to hikers since the fall of 2024. Riders of bikes and horses had to wait until spring, when the ground finally dried. The county’s Regional Parks department waited until July — after spring grasses had been trimmed back — to announce the trails’ opening.
Due in part to its proximity to Santa Rosa, the park has experienced some overuse — has been “overloved,” in Reid’s words — especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. Adding the new trails creates a way for people to spread out more and reduce their impact, she says.
As the population of southeast Santa Rosa grows, says Regional Parks director Bert Whitaker, “folks are going to need a place” to be in nature. The new trail system “really does connect into the communities there.”
New trails to traverse
By following signs to the Kawana Springs Trail, a few steps north and east of the Kawana Terrace parking lot, visitors can find a pathway to the former mineral springs resort owned by the Gold Rush pioneer John Shackelford Taylor, who came to Santa Rosa in 1853.
Proceeding clockwise, visitors can head north on the Linwood Trail, a gradual climb just beyond the eastern property line of Sonoma Academy, then bend south, still gently uphill, in the generous shade of the live oaks along Cooper Ridge Trail.
That pathway joins up with the aptly named Panorama Trail, which in turn gives way, at Barn Fork, to the Colgan Highlands Trail, whose hard-earned switchbacks lead to the park’s East Knoll, offering sweeping views of Bennett Valley.
Descending from East Knoll, visitors may turn left on the Highlands Connector, which delivers them from Taylor Mountain’s new trails system to its old one, via the Sky Lupine Trail.
Or they can opt for the recently opened Colgan Creek Trail, a whoop-inducing descent through stands of various oaks, madrone, bay trees, and buckeye. That shaded, riparian corridor is distinct, says Reid, from anything “in the original parcel of the park.”
Tom Boss, executive director of the Redwood Trails Alliance, notes the differences between Taylor Mountain’s new pathways and those in neighboring Trione-Annadel State Park.
Unlike many of Annadel’s trails — “old ranch roads that were turned into trails” — those newly carved into Taylor Mountain “are very flowy, and don’t have a lot of rock. They’re built from scratch, built to 21st century standards to address erosion and grade,” says Boss.
“They really highlight trail construction at its best.”
Seldom do gradients on the new trails exceed 4%. There are some steeper spots, allows Reid, “But for most people, if you just take your time, it’s fairly doable.
“It’s a great extension of the original park.”
Taylor Mountain Regional Park, 2080 Kawana Terrace, Santa Rosa. socoparks.org
This article was originally published in The Press Democrat. Read the full story here.