by Pierre Ratte
Healdsburg has such lovely hiking trails. It offers so many things to do to kick-off summer over the long Memorial Day weekend. The Future Farmers of America Fair and the Thursday night Twilight Parade, where Healdsburgians either join the parade or watch it, dominated weekend activities along with picnics, barbecues and pool parties. But Healdsburg also offers the possibility of stepping outside the hubbub and hitting a trail.
The view in the above photo was taken from the trail at Riverside Regional Park—a lovely park where two lakes almost merge with the Russian River. Whether people paddled or hiked in picture-perfect weekend weather, or took advantage of in-town festivities, here’s hoping everyone enjoyed the lovely weather, the gatherings and Healdsburg’s friendly community.
Fun facts: Riverfront Regional Park has two lakes: Lake Benoist and Lake Wilson. Both are reclaimed gravel pits from the Basalt Rock Company, later acquired by Dillingham Construction, then Syar Industries. During the height of rock and gravel operations, these mining sites supplied aggregate for the foundations of the Golden Gate Bridge (1933-1937), roads and commercial building sites in downtown San Francisco.
Riverfront Park comprises approximately 300 acres. The two lakes comprise 37 acres and 67 acres, about one-third of the park. A third lake, Lake McLaughlin, lies outside the park on land held by Sonoma Water.
A reasonably flat and wide hiking trail 2.2 miles in length circles the lakes, with approximately a half-mile passing through a stately redwood picnic grove.
The Russian River in this area lays on top of a vast gravel bed extending 60 feet under the river. The gravel bed extends through much of the Russian River Valley, creating a major regional aquifer. The gravel deposits were created by coast range uplifts and a millennia of erosional outwashes from mountain creeks.
The redwood picnic grove was preserved with the help of Sonoma County Ag + Open Space District. Check Sonoma County Regional Parks and Ag + Open Space’s website at sonomaopenspace.org for more information on hiking trails and conserved open spaces in Sonoma County.
