Annadel State Park (East of Santa Rosa)

OTE Ratings: O7/T8/E9
Distance: 18 miles
Climbing: 2200 feet
Time: 4-5 hours
USGS 7.5’ topo: Santa Rosa, CA; Kenwood, CA

Description

Annadel was originally named "Annie’s Dell", for Annie Hutchinson, a grand-daughter of an early landowner). For a time, it was an obsidian, cobblestone and perlite quarry. The park is about 5000 acres, with many miles of dirt roads and of mountain-bike trails. There is also a beautiful lake, a marsh, and several springs and creeks. Most of the park is inaccessible by car. The many mountain bike trails are named and well-signed.

The terrain is mostly open meadows of dry grass/foxtails and mixed woodlands (mostly oak trees), with a few small patches of redwoods at the top of the mountain. Since it used to be a quarry, the best way to describe most of the trails up there is rocky. I have damaged rims (on a cheap MTB) on rides in this park.

Directions to the start

There are several entrances to the park. To get to the main entrance & parking lot (N 38.44411°, W 122.61579°), take US-101 to Santa Rosa, get off onto CA-12, which turns into Farmer’s Lane. Turn right onto Montgomery Drive, and then right onto Channel Drive. Pay ($2) at the entrance station, then continue along Channel Drive until it ends (at the parking lot).

To reach an alternative entrance (at the south-eastern end of the park), take CA-12 to Lawndale, turn south, and park in the small lot on the right, just before Lawndale goes uphill.

The ride

[by Ross Finlayson] To date I have explored only the north-western half of the park, but this is where most of the best singletrack appears to be. To reach this singletrack, take the Warren Richardson trail (a fireroad) from the parking lot.

The "Orchard", "Live Oak", and (especially) "North Burma" trails are excellent.

For more information

The official State Parks page for this park
Keith Flood’s Annadel page, including a description of a 12-mile loop
More web pages describing this park: from "MTBR.com"; from "Bay Area Hiker"; from Rory Huber; from "CitySearch"; from Scott Kendall; from "The Ogre’s Guide"; from Steve Wolf (including a good map)

Return to the mountain biking page