The long-awaited reopening of North Fitch Mountain Road took place last week on Friday, Oct. 10. A pleased complement of county officials, contractors and especially neighbors of the troubled stretch of road gathered midday at the site for congratulations, gratitude and a ribbon-cutting.
The road itself has been closed since the spring, when the road-slippage and landslide situation—known as the “slump and slide” to workers and neighbors alike—forced traffic to take the long way around, across town to Matheson then up South Fitch Mountain. Fitch Mountain Road itself is about three miles long, but going around the mountain totals over five miles.
This detour proved especially irritating for residents of short, idiosyncratic Redwood Avenue, who instead of being five minutes from Big John’s market found themselves closer in drive time to Safeway.
Though the area has been troubled by road quality issues for years, it wasn’t until last year’s early winter rainfall that the situation became critical. The two major failures, neither one of which were new last year, required extensive reconstruction: The slump site, where saturated soil caused the roadbed to sink several feet; and the slide site, where a steep, oversaturated slope collapsed, destabilizing the embankment and dumping debris on the two-lane road.
In part to deal with the challenges of living on a narrow county road outside of Healdsburg city limits, residents formed the Fitch Mountain Association in 1979. It’s not a home-owners association (HOA) but a community benefit association, a “quasi organized group of people that advocated for community,” said Pat Abercrombie, a longtime member and former president of the FMA. “Its purpose is to amplify the voice of people who live here.”
Abercrombie, who had a practical viewpoint about the association and area residents, said, “I wouldn’t say it’s tightly knit; people don’t live on Fitch Mountain if they’re looking for a tight community.”
Heather Pilatic, another FMA member, characterized its role. “Our main gig is to hold the agencies that meet our community’s basic public services (roads, water, fire) accountable to what we need as a community” since the loop road is outside City of Healdsburg jurisdiction and lacks all of its utilities services, she said. It is, however, in the coverage area for Healdsburg Fire.
Abercrombie dated the landslide portion of the road to a 1989 project to make room for a school bus to make a narrow turn, instead of executing a three-point turn to get around the bend. Likewise, the deep slump in the road nearby was evidently caused by a landowner on Scenic Lane down the hill who made some landscaping changes.
Years of lobbying the city, county and state to pay attention to their FMA’s plight only received the focused attention of the state in 2017. Various strategies for funding and executing the repairs came and went, but the FMA did not give up.
“The North Fitch Mountain community has been our partner every step of the way since 2017,” said Johannes Hoevertsz, director of Sonoma County Public Infrastructure, last week. “Their patience and support have been invaluable, and we’re proud to deliver a safe, reliable road that serves residents, visitors and emergency responders alike.”
Yet it wasn’t until this summer that a crew—Team Ghilotti of Petaluma—was assembled to correct these issues. Under the guidance of department engineer Cindy Rader, the contractor installed uphill drainage to capture runoff and redirect it safely, then dug out, refilled and resurfaced the problematic stretch of road slippage.
The “slide” area required rebuilding the slope by adding gabion walls—large rock-filled wire baskets that hold slopes in place while allowing water to drain through them.
According to Diana Callaway of Public Infrastructure, the repair took longer than anticipated because “the drainage system proved more elaborate than initially anticipated, and the contractor needed additional time to complete it.”
The result of all this time and effort is that Fitch Mountain Road is now open to traffic coming from the north side of Healdsburg up Powell Avenue. That will help complete the circle around Fitch Mountain, always a favorite loop for walkers, cyclists, joggers and even residents with its scenic riverside route along the Russian River.
