Trione-Annadel park reopens fire-damaged trails

Fire-damaged areas of Trione-Annadel State Park have reopened to visitors, who rushed back into its southern reaches over the weekend even as 6-month-old trail closure signs were still coming down.

Newly opened portions of the park have been off-limits to the public since October, when wind-driven wildfires tore through the Sonoma County landscape, ravaging a half-dozen popular state and regional parks, including 5,200-acre Trione-Annadel at the southeastern edge of Santa Rosa.

But word spread when an order reopening closed trails was signed late Friday, bringing hikers, mountain bikers and equestrians back to the park in droves under sunny weekend skies.

“I’m very, very excited,” said Santa Rosa mountain biker Nick Haig-Arack, who was among those in the park Saturday, having left a mountain bike industry event in Monterey ahead of schedule to return home Friday night. “I drove all the way back here because I heard that Annadel was open again.”

Though evidence of fire remains obvious in some parts of the park where the flames burned the trees, much of the area has recovered and is brimming with greenery and wildflowers. Underbrush burned out of woodland areas has encouraged new growth and improved sightlines just in time for a gorgeous spring wildflower display.

“My general feeling was it was better off than it was before the fire,” Haig-Arack said.

Nick Nesbitt, a co-founder of the Redwood Empire Mountain Bike Alliance, whose members have been volunteering to help rebuild trails, said he thought people would find the park “more encouraging than people thought it was going to be.”

“It’s so clear that there’s been a serious fire there, but also there’s that feeling of hope because you’re seeing things grow back,” he said. “You can tell there’s some vibrant life happening.”

Two short stretches of trail - less than 4 miles of the park’s more than 40 available miles - remain closed because of crossing structures that must be rebuilt, including one in the area of Ledson Marsh, which is a sensitive habitat, according to state parks Bay Area District Superintendent Vince Anibale.

A 15-foot bridge-like structure that used to carry park vehicles across the marsh - in addition to hikers, bikers and equestrians - will be replaced later, Anibale said. But crews will begin working next week on a permanent, secondary structure bypassing the marsh for use by park visitors only, he said.

A 36-foot boardwalk-style path on a remote section of the Ridge Trail also is pending because park officials haven’t determined how to get construction materials to the site, Anibale said. Members of the mountain bike alliance have raised funds toward the estimated $32,000 cost of the project and will help with construction once the materials can be staged, Anibale said. The timeline is unknown.

“It’s a lot of big-dimension lumber, and there’s no vehicle access,” Anibale said.

The sprawling park on the flank of Bennett Mountain is a favorite of local residents because of its proximity to population centers, diverse scenery and its multiuse trails, so there was mourning when the 56,556-acre Nuns fire ripped through the region last October.

“We all realized how much we loved this place, and how much we needed it,” Nesbitt said.

More than 60 percent of Trione-Annadel was burned, and the entire park was closed for a month, though the northern sector was reopened a month later and a separate loop of trail was opened in February.

Newly opened trails include those closest to the Sonoma Valley and Kenwood, greatly improving ease of access, Nesbitt said.

They also include challenging, densely wooded trails like Lawndale and South Burma, that “were just off the menu completely,” he said.

Though out of town and unable to get to Trione-Annadel over the weekend, Nesbitt said it’s clear from friends and social media “there was a big rush” to get back.

People “were frothing for it, and really happy to be there,” he said.

Nesbitt and Debbie Bloomquist, the bike alliance’s chairwoman, said having much of the park closed has been hard on area mountain bikers and others.

People wanted and needed recreation after the fires and have missed having those miles of trail available.

“We’re happy to get what we can open,” Anibale said, “and hopefully we will get those other trails open soon.”