Scouting About Soulajule Reservoir (April 13)

Although "school was out" this week for our regular College of Marin hiking classes, about twenty of us "vacationing" hikers from the Monday and Tuesday Meandering groups met up with Wendy on Monday morning for a "scouting hike" around MMWD's Soulajule Reservoir. Although several of us misunderstood the directions to the trailhead and stopped short of the parking lot at the dam, eventually we all ended up at the jumping off spot. (Although the MMWD Web site provides trail maps for the Mt. Tam watershed, it features neither a map nor access information for the Soulajule area. The water district says that it owns a couple thousand acres of watershed around both Nicasio and Soulajule reservoirs with much of the drainage into these lakes running across privately owned land).

During our pre-hike "confab", Dick told that group that he had last been out to Soulajule in the late 1970's when the law firm for whom he worked was hired by MMWD to help it acquire land for an expanded reservoir at this location. (In his 1976 report to MMWD on restoration of salmon runs in Walker Creek, aquatic biologist D.W. Kelley noted that a small reservoir existed on Arroyo Sausal, an upstream tributary of Walker Creek which eventually empties into Tomales Bay. Kelley's report includes a map that shows the size of today's Soulajule reservoir which MMWD was then considering building). In his post-hike research, Dick hasn't been able to find the exact date of construction for the new reservoir, but it would have come fairly close on the heels of the last major drought in Marin during 1976-1977. (For more on that drought, read The Man Who Made it Rain, about J. Dietrich Stroeh, manager of MMWD at the time; the book is available in Marin County libraries).

We began the hike passing the eastern end of the dam and then climbing a short, steep "cow track" trail until it leveled out onto a narrow path skirting the edge of the lake. From here we could get a clear view south and west down the main arm of the lake. After less than a quarter mile, we turned east, crawled under a barbed wire fence (which may have marked the edge of the MMWD-owned land) and continued to along the shoreline of the reservoir. Although we passed an odd tree here and there, the terrain was mostly grassland carpeted with wildflowers running steeply down to the lake.

Another half mile or so of meandering along the lake front brought us to a forested point of land where we spotted woodpeckers and had to pick our way through the trees and brush as the trail began to fade out. After a tenth of a mile and twenty minutes of tedious "bushwhacking" we emerged from the woods and back out into open fields, tossed off our packs, shedded layers of outerwear, and took a drink out of our waterbottles. We continued eastward for another five minutes, then turned back to the north and hiked uphill near a creek, stopping to check out a"Mosquito Hawk" (aka "Crane Fly") which Wendy had captured. (Click here for Wendy's list of all of the flora and fauna spotted on this hike).

Swinging back to the east, we zig-zagged our way across the landscape for another tenth of a mile, then headed straight uphill until reaching a broad, flat meadow extending west towards our starting point. With wildflowers at our feet, and mountain peaks rising up all around us, we could have been in the Austrian alps ready to burst into a chorus of "The Hills Are Alive With The Sound of Music" or at least a yodel or two.

Instead of doing a musical Julie Andrews impersonation, we began a steady, steep ascent eastward. After fifteen minutes of walking straight up the fall line, some of us opted to plop down in a warm, sunny spot with scenic views back towards the Three Peaks area to the west. (The Panfiglio Ranch in the Three Peaks area has been preserved for perpetual agricultural use under a conservation easement given to the Marin Agricultural Land Trust in 2008).

Christina, Stan and Linda continued on for a bit further before finding a shady place for lunch while the rest of us trudged upward for another twenty minutes following Christina's husband, Chuck, who probably would have led us all the way to Petaluma if we hadn't gang tackled him a half mile later at the top of the ridge. From the "summit" we enjoyed a panorama extending south and east to San Francisco Bay and Mount Diablo, south to Mt. Tam, and west to Inverness Ridge.

(The Google Earth photo below looks the west from the "summit", over Three Peaks, and then west to Point Reyes; click on it to open a large image in your Web browser).


(Click on the panoramic photo below to open a larger image in your Web browser)

The "Summit Team" then descended the ridge to join the rest of the group for lunch. Around 12:45 PM we packed up our gear, and headed down the hill towards the lake. If we would have gone north and west, we probably could have shortened the walk back to our cars, but a phalanx of long-horned steers dissuaded us from going in that direction. Within fifteen minutes we were at the edge of the reservoir, "diving" under the barbed-wire fence again. In another fifteen minutes and a third of a mile of hiking we reached the parking lot and our waiting cars.

The weather was sunny, but the wind was sharp and cold as we began the hike and it was still breezy when we reached the lake again three hours after starting out. But the lunch spot was perfect, and overall the weather was much better than last Tuesday when we were whipped by rain and wind at Chimney Rock. (Lucky for us, we didn't do either the Chimney Rock or the Soulajule hikes this Tuesday. Winds at Point Reyes gusting up to 63 mph would have flattened us across the ground, and the breeze probably would have strong enough to blow us off the "summit" at Soulajule).

On this outing we only hiked about 3.5 miles (see the Google Earth photo below for our approximate route; click on it for a larger image) which took us three and a half hours with stops and out lunch break. At the parking lot we were about 300' above sea level; those of us who climbed all the way to the "summit" reached a height of just under 1,100'.


(Pictures taken by Dick Jordan during the Soulajule hike are on-line. You can view them in the mini-slideshow window on the "Meandering In Marin On Tuesdays" blog, or by clicking here to go directly to the Picasa Web album of photos from the latest hike).

(Most of us retraced our route back through Hicks Valley driving home from the trailhead. Dick was bound for Santa Rosa and headed over Wilson Hill to Petaluma. The following pictures and comments relate to his post-hike drive).

Over thirty-five years ago when I owned a French-built "Motobecane" 10-speed bike, I pushed it up one side of Wilson Hill and rode it down the other. Today I went straight at the intersection of the Petaluma-Marshall Road and Hicks Valley Road, put my foot on the gas pedal instead of a bike pedal, and easily ascended this 736' high mound where I could peer down into the Stubbs Vineyard Pinot Noir plantings in the valley below and to the west, and gaze over the green hills and off toward Petaluma to the east.

After spending a while enjoying the scenery and taking some more photos, I rode the steep grade to the bottom and followed the road until it joined and morphed into Chileno Valley Road. In a short while I passed a solitary llama in one field and grazing sheep in another before pulling over at San Antonio Creek (marking the Marin-Sonoma County line) to shoot some final pictures.

Continuing on along Chileno Valley Road until it met Western Avenue running westward from downtown Petaluma, I decided that even though I'd not had to huff and puff pushing a bike up Wilson Hill, I had scrambled several hundred feet up the trail above Soulajule Reservoir and had earned a mid-afternoon "treat" at Petaluma's "Tea Room" Cafe. So when I reached town, I parked my car and strode over to this informal eaterie and refilled my calorie tank with a large, moist and sweet chocolate cupcake washed down with a giant cup of latte that I had to raise to my lips with both hands to prevent spilling it down the front of my shirt.

(Dick's round-about trek home continued on Tuesday with a drive down the Valley of The Moon from Santa Rosa to the Town of Sonoma for wine tasting at Castle Vineyards and lunch at The Girl & The Fig bistro).