Taylor Mountain Phase II

What & Why?

Sonoma County Regional Parks has been awarded a $1.83 million dollar Recreational Trails Program grant to construct 8 miles of new trails and three new walk-in/bike-in neighborhood access points at Taylor Mountain Regional Park and Open Space Preserve.

The new trails will provide public access to several hundred acres in the northeast area of the park that are not currently open and will increase the amount of trails available from 5 miles to 13 miles. The trails will be designed for year-round use by hikers, mountain bikers, and horseback riders and will include several bridges and other structures to cross streams and smaller drainages.

What's Next?

Regional Parks has completed the environmental work required to secure the federal funding for the project. We have also obtained regulatory permits for the trail work, as well as building permits for the bridges. We have executed contracts for design and engineering services, and the geotechnical field work has been completed for the six bridges that are planned for the new trail system. Five trail bridges and one vehicle bridge have been purchased and delivered to the site for assembly and installation.

We have also staked trails and prepared trail logs that were used for bidding construction of the project. The trails are being constructed in phases using Parks and volunteer labor, trail contractors, and volunteer trail groups such as the Sonoma County Trails Council/Redwood Trails Alliance. The Conservation Corps North Bay has also assisted with trail clearing and construction.

Initial clearing work for a couple of sections of trail began in the fall of 2020, and a couple of trail sections were built in 2021. The Cooper Ridge Trail was constructed by the Redwood Trails Alliance (Sonoma County Trails Council SCTC) in the spring and summer of 2021. We also worked with the Conservation Corps North Bay (CCNB) and SCTC on the Kawana Springs Trail and the Sky Lupine Trail, and that work was completed in the fall 2022.

In the summer of 2023, we completed about four miles of the trails and began constructing the bridge abutments for the vehicle and pedestrian bridges. The rainy season shut the work down for several months, but the contractor is getting ready to mobilize back to the site to continue with the project. We anticipate opening the new entry points for walk-in and bike in access and the new trails for public use before the summer of 2025.