Steve's Mountain Bike Page
Turlock, California

Annadel State Park, Santa Rosa, CA

October 18, 2003

I recently became interested in riding at Annadel after reading several online reviews of the trails. Neil had a sore foot from hiking to the top of Mt. Whitney last week so he decided to see if he could ride on it. Although the day was full of mishaps, it was some of the best riding I've ever done. Halfway to Neil's house I realized I forgot my gloves so I turned around, went back home and quickly grabbed them. When I got to the trailhead I discovered I had two left gloves. Fortunately, someone left a pair of gloves near the park entrance so I borrowed the right one. Neil wore sweat pants but when we arrived at the trailhead he realized he forgot his biking shorts. Fortunately, I always bring a pair of cotton shorts to change into in case I get really dirty so he borrowed them. 

Annadel State Park is off of highway 12 just south of Santa Rosa, CA. However, if you come up highway 12 from the south via Sonoma, the street you turn left on to enter the park is not marked. Therefore, we ended up driving around town quite a bit until we got someone to give us better directions. Going north on Hwy 12 turn left at Melita Road or the one after it, Los Alamos. Both run into Montgomery Drive from which there is a left turn on to Channel Drive. Channel Drive does a very sharp left hand bend and a dirt parking area is not too far ahead. Here is a map indicating the turns. You park 1/4 to 1/2 mile before the park entrance in a dirt area on the left side of the road. The Cobblestone trail starts just across the street on the right side of the road.

The park was out of trail maps so we used two maps I'd printed off the web. However, they were quite confusing and so were many of the trail markers. So we ended up not going the way we had planned. We met another rider on the trail who had still yet another map and he was just as confused as us. However, it didn't matter because we managed to find some great trails.

We went up the Cobblestone trail, then the Orchard trail, and we mistakenly got on the Warren Richardson, rather than the Rough Go trail we were looking for. We then bombed down the lower Steve's trail, a fantastic, narrow, twisty singletrack. We then turned the wrong way on the north Burma trail, which took us down some extremely steep and fun singletrack and dumped us back out on Channel Drive near the park entrance! A passing local told us how to get back up into the park. We went farther down the paved Channel Drive and then took the Warren Richardson fire road back to the middle of the park. We had a fantastic time going down the lower Steve's trail the first time and since the helmet cam screwed up on that run, we decided to do it again. We then took the North Burma trail and Live Oak trails back to Orchard trail and finished up by going back down the Cobblestone trail to where we originally started.

Apparently the park has 30 - 40 miles of trails and much of it is prime singletrack. It is some of the finest singletrack I've ever been on. Most of it is hard packed and fast, but there are plenty of rocks to make it interesting and challenging. It reminded us both of Salmon Falls but bigger, steeper and much more fun. There are many steep ups and downs but the climbs weren't too bad, even for my rickety old knees. Most of the trails we took were through nicely shaded forests. The rocks were about perfect for me, very challenging but I could do nearly all of them. However, we both agreed that in the future it would be best to start out by going up the Warren Richardson fire road rather than the Cobblestone. The latter is quite steep and rocky considering you go straight up from the parking lot. It was pretty hard on my cold knees. Besides, you absolutely must come back down the Cobblestone for quite a thrill ride on some really twisty and rocky singletrack. Taking the fire road up at the start would give you a nice gradual warm-up. 

On the way back home the mishaps continued. We were so excited and talking about the ride that I somehow flew through Stockton and my exit without even knowing it. It was an extremely long day but well worth the trip. The trails look like they will be excellent during the winter. I'll definitely be going back quite a bit in the coming months and hopefully I'll make a better map. Here is a map of the park I've since drawn.

Update Nov. 1, 2003: I went back to Annadel and did most of what we had originally intended to do, but in the reverse direction. I took the Warren Richardson fire road up to South Burma, went up South Burma, then Marsh to Lawndale trail, up the paved roads to Schultz, Ridge, Marsh, Rough Go, and Orchard trails and back down the Cobblestone trail. You absolutely must go down Lawndale, which is many miles of fantastic downhill through a dark Redwood forest! From the paved roads Schultz, Ridge, and Marsh are all uphill for several miles but it is great singletrack and even I didn't have any trouble going up them. South Burma was a pretty rocky uphill climb but I did it all without stopping, so it wasn't too bad. It would be a fantastic downhill ride! Here is a map indicating how to get to the Park from Hwy 12. 

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