I spent a week walking the Camino de Sonoma from Sonoma to Fort Ross with my friends Michele and Julie. It was an incredible trip! We camped in the evening and hiked during the day, shuttling our cars so we only had to carry our day packs with water and food.
Day one was Sonoma Mission to Kenwood Plaza Park. We dropped a car off at Kenwood Plaza Park and headed to downtown Sonoma to start our journey in front of the Sonoma Mission. It was a Sunday, so it was quite a busy place. We met lots of friendly people on the bike and walk path. There were beautiful views of vineyards, unfortunately some of those views were when we were walking alongside Highway 12. We didn’t realize we were going to be on Highway 12, sometimes with little shoulder space, which was scary and often very loud because of all of the fast cars. We saw two dead birds, one hummingbird and a stellar jay and two live snakes (not sure what kind, but one of them was very long) and a dead raccoon by the side of the road. The back roads were lovely and quiet, dotted with small farms where we saw goats and chickens. We passed over several creeks, stopped for lunch at the Glen Ellen Market, which was the two-thirds mark for that day’s walk. Julie and I got the Jack London sandwich. Yum! That days walk finished with a final trek on Highway 12 where we saw a cable car that is used for wine tours. We realized we didn’t need hiking boots as we were on paved roads most of the time. The breeze was heavenly on the hot afternoon.
After we were done with our walk we set up camp at Spring Lake Park. Our site was half sunny and half shady, a beautiful spot with a glimpse of the lake below. For the first hour or so there were helicopters going overhead doing some kind of training. We had our dinner of salad, crackers, cheese, and sangria (OK I was the only one who had sangria!). After dinner, Jane, a volunteer with the Camino de Sonoma group, stopped by to drop off Camino passports with stickers and shells for us! Our day ended with a walk to the lake to enjoy the gorgeous views. We were all in bed before it was dark, tired but ready for day two.
Day two was Kenwood Plaza Park to Mary’s Pizza Shack in Santa Rosa. We were up early for coffee and prepping our oatmeal breakfast and lunch food. We dropped a car at Mary’s Pizza Shack about 7:45 then headed back to Kenwood. The first part of the walk, going through a cute neighborhood was great. We saw a house with wooden cacti with buzzards on top and several front yard mini vineyards. We had one mile on Highway 12 (which we were definitely starting to curse) with the morning traffic. We passed the St Anne’s Crossing Winery bear and wondering if it had turned its head since we drove past it the day before. Soon after we turned off for a lovely saunter down a quiet street with homes on large lots, many with rows of grapevines.
Our breakfast stop was at the entrance to Annadel State Park. Barking dogs at the house across the street greeted us, but soon grew bored when we just sat and ate. We started uphill in full sun, but soon were in alternating shade and sun, a steady gradual uphill, which wasn’t too difficult. There were gorgeous oak trees everywhere. We went through areas that were burned by the 2017 Nunns fire, seeing all the new growth was exciting. The hike was mainly single track trails with some fire roads and we saw only a few hikers and a few bikers. There were tables under shady trees, and incredible views of the meadow and at one point Mount Diablo in the distance. We ended up walking a mile or two more in the state park so that we could follow the Bay Area Ridge Trail path instead of the Camino. The trek took us through our campground so we stopped at our campsite and dropped our packs off for the last two miles (heaven!) It was very lush going through Howarth park next to Spring Lake Park.
On the way back, we stopped at Jamba Juice which helped revive us, taking showers was even better! Amazingly enough, we had energy after dinner to go for a night time walk around the campground and down to the lake. I clocked in over 50,000 steps that day! Needless to say we all fell asleep very quickly that night.
Day three was Mary’s Pizza Shack in Santa Rosa to Sebastopol Central Park. We were mainly on paved paths, but often away from traffic and in the shade, which was good because it was a very warm afternoon. We saw the sign indicating where Saint Rosa was baptized, the person that Santa Rosa was named after. We walked next to the Santa Rosa Creek on a rocky, sandy path that was very lush. Breakfast was at the Old Courthouse Square, where there was great public art. Unfortunately, there weren’t any bathrooms available until we got to a park that was several miles away. It was beautiful walking on relatively shady paths, though we had very sore feet and tired hips. We stopped for lunch on the Joe Rodota pathway which parallels Highway 12, but wasn’t noisy and was lined on both sides by trees. We ended our walk with cold treats from Screaming Mimi’s in Sebastopol.
Revived, we walked to Florence Street and enjoyed all the funky art. Our final stop on our way back to the campground was for ice, firewood and food. I made a campfire while Michele and Julie made tacos for dinner. We presented each other with our Camino red abalone shells for completing half of the Camino! We all went to bed, knowing that we could sleep in the next morning as it was our break day.
Wednesday was our day off and Michele’s daughter, Kelly came to visit. We packed up camp, went for a walk around the lake then drove to Doran Beach Park in Bodega Bay where we were staying for the next three nights. It was very, very windy! We managed to get both of the tents up then Julie and I went to Spud Point Crab Company where I introduced her to their amazing clam chowder, which she just loved. We headed back to the campground, and sat on the beach for a while, which, because of the sand dunes was a much calmer, warmer, quieter spot. But as soon as we walked over the sand dune to our campsite, which was only 20 yards away, we were hit with the full force of the wind again. In the end, Michele’s tent was not able to stay up, so she and Julie both slept in the cars while I slept my tent. I was tired and once I had my earplugs in, I went to sleep. We weren’t sure how many nights we’d be able to handle the wind, but we figured we could last at least one night since the people camping next to us had a six-month-old baby and they were braving the winds!
We all made it through the night unscathed and the wind had died down, though not enough to make boiling water for coffee and oatmeal an easy task. We stopped for coffee on our way out. Day four was Sebastopol to Occidental. As we were getting ready to leave Sebastopol, we chatted with the lady who had fresh flowers in her hat that she had picked on her morning walk. She was from Kentucky and was thinking of moving out to California. This was another day of lots of walking on paved paths and streets. On one of the paths we talked to an older lady on her daily walk. We went through Graton then were on Green Valley Road where there was no shoulder for three or four miles. It wasn’t a busy road, but it was still disconcerting facing traffic without anywhere to go. Michele found a good spot off the road for our lunch stop, then we were on much quieter roads. Just before we arrived in Occidental we stopped at Bigfoot Park, where we saw a big carved statue of Bigfoot. It was a shady, old school park with a metal slide, small metal merry-go-round and tall swings, a nice place to relax.
We decided to try out the Bodega Dunes Day Use area to make our dinner, which was a much less windy area, and we made delicious quesadillas then went to the beach. Finally we drove up to Bodega Head to watch the sunset, which was just beautiful, and got pictures of us with our windy hair blowing everywhere, inducing lots of laughter. That helped us get ready to spend another night in our windy campsite.
Day five was Occidental to Jenner. I woke up in time to see an absolutely gorgeous sunrise. Strangely enough it was easier to see the sunrise from our campsite than the sunset, despite being on the Pacific Ocean. After fueling up with coffee, we dropped a car off at the Jenner Visitor Center then drove to Occidental. It was uphill to start on a relatively quiet street, thank goodness! After a mile or so we turned onto Willow Creek Road – lots of trees, just beautiful and almost no cars. Eventually, it became Willow Creek trail through Sonoma Coast State Park which was fantastic. Most of the time we had the trail to ourselves, except for a couple of bikers. Oh and both times I peed at the side of the trail as soon as I had pulled my pants up, male hikers came around the corner! It was hilarious. We had lunch in a shady spot, good for resting our tired feet. We came upon a nice road construction crew when we came off of the trail and back onto the road. After having had a very peaceful hike, the last mile and a half was quite noisy, walking across the Jenner bridge and at the side of Highway One. Luckily, the traffic was relatively light in our direction.
We decided to drive to Fort Ross to see what the walk would be like on our last day because we saw that it’d be about 10 miles on Highway One. It didn’t take us long to decide to find an alternate route because it did not look safe at all to walk on that windy, steep road with many places where there was no shoulder on the Saturday of a holiday weekend! On the way back to our campsite, we stopped in at Wildflour Bakery where I got a loaf of garlic rosemary bread. Yummy, yummy! We went back to Bodega Dunes Day Use again for dinner, which was more crowded now that it was the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. After stuffing ourselves with tacos, we went back to the still windy campground, packed up and went to bed, anticipating the final day of our Camino.
Day six was supposed to be a walk from Jenner to Fort Ross. Instead, we hiked the Kortum trail from Wrights Beach to Goat Rock Beach and back, then from Reef campground to Fort Ross and back. This gave us the same mileage with slightly less elevation gain than the official walk, but was a much nicer, safer walk with similar coastal views. We woke up to a very foggy morning (first time we had any fog at the beach) earlier Julie and Michele had gone out to pick up coffee to drink while we watched the sunrise. Instead, we looked at the fog as we sipped our coffee, then packed up our cars, eager to get started. Unfortunately my car wouldn’t start, so our hike was delayed until someone could come and jump the battery. Luckily, that was the only issue. We stopped at the Birds Cafe for more coffee then at a self-serve bakery in front of someone’s house where Julie got an Oreo Rice Krispie. Finally, we were ready to start the final stage of our Camino! The Kortum Trail was gorgeous, we marveled at the wild and beautiful coastline. There were lots of people on the trail because it was the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. We gathered some rocks for the end of the trail. I think the six days of hiking was catching up with us as we were all very tired, even though there wasn’t much elevation gain. Lunch was at a picnic table on the bluff, an amazing spot.
Next we drove to the Reef campground, and walked the two and a half miles to Fort Ross. It was very, very windy, even more so than at our campground, but we were determined to finish. We arrived at Fort Ross and rang the chapel bell to signal the end of our Camino. We did it! After a look around it was time to head to the cliff and throw our rocks into the sea, signifying everything that we wanted to let go of. On the walk back to the campground, we sang The Proclaimers song I’m gonna be (500 miles).
We had our farewell dinner by the Jenner Bridge at Jilly’s Real Food Roadhouse. The food was just okay, but we were grateful we didn’t have to cook it or clean it up afterwards. We put on our last sticker and the purple cord on our shell to signify we had completed the Camino and made plans to hike in Concord the next Saturday. It was a fantastic trip, challenging at times with the mileage, the weather and the busy sections of the route, but also beautiful and peaceful. It was wonderful to have so much time outdoors with friends, moving at a slower pace and really getting to experience where we were. I am definitely up for more long hikes like this. Camino de Santiago here we come!!
