show menu

The everyday heroes behind the reopening of Guerneville’s Armstrong Redwoods

As I write this story, my little house in the redwoods is powered by my emergency generator. The power’s been out all day, and we’re all waiting for the floods. Yet at the same time I’m totally in love with the sound of the rain. Even the intense drone of the generator — certainly the epitome of a symbol of human’s drive to “overcome” nature —cannot overpower the symphony of the rain and wind. It feels like a perfect way to write a story about the reopening of our beloved Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve. A treasured refuge for generations of people — even as we continue our seemingly unstoppable encroachment on the very nature we cherish — and that many incredibly dedicated humans are trying to protect.

Death and new life (David Rosen photo)
Death and new life (David Rosen photo)

I’m going to introduce you to a few of them here. And when you return to Armstrong Redwoods, I hope that every time you have one of those amazing deep Ahhhhhhh moments, that you’ll share some of that in your heart with these folks. Because without them, you and I would still be waiting to return.

Earlier in the week I had the profound honor of being given a tour of the Armstrong grove trails by Andrew Scott, who is Volunteer Programs Manager with Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods. Stewards is a nonprofit that partners with the Russian River sector of California State Parks to promote, restore and protect the natural and cultural resources in Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve, Austin Creek State Recreation Area, and Sonoma Coast State Park from Bodega Bay to Jenner.

Armstrong Redwoods SNR forest floor will reopen on Friday, October 29th, weather permitting.

The East and Pool Ridge trails remain closed pending restoration.

Be prepared for day-use fees in the front parking lot. One-day fee waivers are available for those in need of financial assistance.

All amenities within Armstrong Redwoods SNR are open and available to the public with the exception of East Ridge Trail and Pool Ridge Trail which connect to Austin Creek SRA. Maps depicting closed trail sections are available at the kiosk upon entry.

Since I live less than 10 minutes away, Armstrong has been my sanctuary, my reconnect, one of the truly holy places in my world. The depth of the silence, the smell of our first real rain of the year from just the day before... Andrew took me on a tour through the entire grove that will be opening to the public hopefully by the time you read this. What was the most stunning to me was how GREAT it all looked—especially the areas that clearly had burned. In the 15 months since the Walbridge fire, the forest floor is exquisitely alive with new growth. Everywhere!

Forest hillside (David Rosen photo)
Forest hillside (David Rosen photo)

And what was equally as stunning was to see the dichotomy between the hillsides along the trails, where the fire was allowed to do what fires have done forever—and the interior sides of the trails where the dense cover and gorgeous cacophony of growth we were all so used to seeing as the “forest floor” suddenly looked to me like a burn pile waiting to happen...

Armstrong Woods on fire (Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department photo)
Armstrong Woods on fire (Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department photo)

“A fire has different personalities based on so many different factors: terrain, fuels, humidity—weather is a big part of it. The Walbridge fire burned over several weeks, and so the character of that fire was all over the place. But there’s a good story behind this fire because there’s a happy ending for Armstrong Redwoods.” Brendan O'Neil is the Senior Environmental Scientist for California State Parks, and the overall Project Manager of Natural Resources overseeing the Sonoma-Mendocino Coast District which includes 23 parks. “The first initial days we had some pretty aggressive fire behavior in the back country of Austin Creek. As those fires go up-slope (known as a “head fire”) they burn hotter and pre-heat the fuels in front of them with greater intensity. By Day 3, there were 150-ft. flames on McCray Ridge consuming whole trees. It came through Bullfrog Pond and cooked most of that area. As it backed down the hill into Armstrong (known as a “backing fire” is when it heads downhill), it began to calm down and we began to figure out a strategy. For the first three days, we had high temperatures and low humidity which definitely increased the fire behavior—but as the fire moved up and down McCray Ridge and then down into the park, temperatures decreased, and humidity increased. We had winds coming up Armstrong valley and a backing fire with wind pushing it back up the hill, so we really had only 6-inch flames coming into the park” making the situation more manageable for the team.

And it was quite a team. These new kinds of fires are bringing together the best of what can make Sonoma County so magnificent. Brendan was very enthusiastic. “Cal Fire was great, (Division Chief) Ben Nicholls was involved, (Battalion Chief) Marshall Turbeville was Branch Director for the fire. Then we had a local fire captain from Occidental who was in charge at Armstrong, Joe Petersen, a really great human being. And then Brion Borba who is a captain over at the Hilton station. Having the local firefighters on the scene was critical because they care deeply about these places. They all deserve credit for their strategic thinking.”

Chief Turbeville concurred: “To me, the biggest benefit was knowing the people and area. We had community potluck meetings going back five or six years prior, and a list of residents and their telephone numbers. One resident called me early and let me know the fire was getting close to his house and Brion Borba was able to arrive just in time to help him save his house.”

After 27 years steering the growth of Stewards, Michele Luna, now Executive Director Emeritus has seen the changes in cooperation. “State Parks and Cal Fire worked really well together and they were able to make some good decisions. The whole process of the handling of fire, I think for both State Parks—and certainly for Stewards because it’s not our area of expertise—has been an amazing learning experience. By the time the Walbridge fire got into Armstrong it was what we call “low and slow” and so it was a very healthy fire for the park, and quite frankly it was welcomed by our environmental staff and our resource scientists—because for them, it was something they saw there was a need for for a long time. So for them it wasn’t so devastating, although of course we were really concerned about whether or not there would be infrastructure damage. That could have been very devastating. But even though the fire got really close to our buildings and vehicles, they were able to keep that infrastructure safe, so that was great.”

Just a few weeks ago, Michele handed the reins of leadership over to new Executive Director Justin Lindenberg. “The thing that was surprising to me was how unaffected the forest really was by this fire, because of its low intensity. If you talk to anybody in forestry, there’s both art and science to this. And with fire, there’s even more art than science, because the science behind wildfire patterns, wildfire recovery, it’s not yet well understood as a field.”

But we sure did have the A Team on board! These projects were a partnership between Stewards, Cal Fire, local fire crews, State Parks, TPW (the Sonoma County Dept of Transportation & Public Works), Cal OES (the Office of Emergency Services), Cal Recycle and a multitude of private contractors.

Rich Lawton grew up at the base of Mt. Diablo and knows our parks as well as anyone. “I spent a 30 year career as a State Park Ranger, and the last 17 years I was the Supervising Ranger of Sonoma Coast, which encompassed Armstrong Woods and Austin Creek. When I retired on Christmas of 2005, I joined the Board of Stewards and became an active volunteer.” Today, Rich is the Volunteer Trail Crew Coordinator and he knows this is where he belongs. “Being a Park Ranger to me, it was more than a career, it was more than just a job. It was being more than I could ever be. To me it was really a lifestyle.”

They have about 25 active Trail Crew volunteers and they’ll field anywhere from 12 and 20 folks at any one time. “We’ve had about 20 Trail Crew days so far this year that have been dedicated to Armstrong and Austin Creek. So far just this year the volunteers have put in around 1,800 human-hours working on Armstrong and Austin Creek. And that’s just the volunteer crew, it doesn’t include all the hours put in by an incredibly dedicated staff that includes Field Operations Manager Scotty Lawyer, Field Operations Assistant Rachel Hallaway and Senior Service Aides Carlos Amador and Max Blust.

And the volunteers come from all walks of life. Rich said they’re an amazing group. “We’ve got engineers, retired school teachers, a retired Postmistress from Bodega Bay... This is a dedicated group of people who are working for our parks and making it available for everyone. To be able to work with a whole bunch of folks that volunteer their time is just so rewarding. I look back at each and every one of those people every time we go out, and I just want to give them a big hug and say ‘thank you for validating my life’ and off we go to play.”

Charred trees in Armstrong Woods State Reserve (David Rosen photo)
Charred trees in Armstrong Woods State Reserve (David Rosen photo)

One of those volunteers is Paul Schwarz. Until he retired in 2014, Paul was an IT project manager in the internet banking department of a national bank, headquartered in San Francisco. He’s been volunteering with Stewards since February of 2020. He said that some things surprised him. “The amount of work to be done on trails is never really complete, as brush continues to overgrow trails. The scope is also surprising, as trail crew has involved clearing brush on trails in the various parks, clearing downed trees, repairing signage, trail steps, processing downed logs from the fires into firewood... The camaraderie among the trail crew volunteers is one of the most pleasant surprises, as we really have a good time working together. It's probably less surprising when you consider we have similar love for the outdoors, fitness, and service to the community.”

Rich filled me in on the scope of work that these volunteers had to do to get Armstrong ready for re-opening.

“There were a lot of the hazardous, unsafe trees that had to be taken out by hand and hauled back down and put in the west picnic area. These logs were anywhere from 15 to 25 feet long and 2 feet to 6 feet in diameter. We pulled them down, used chain saws, bucked them up (cutting them into smaller pieces), split them, hauled them out and Stewards is now using that firewood to sell out at Sonoma Coast because they lost a lot of revenue by not having the parks open.” This meant training many volunteer crew members on how to use chain saws and other tools. They also got use of a huge splitter called “The Beast” that would actually lift the logs up in the air and run them through in the vertical position that made four slices.

Paul Schwarz, Bill Bambrick, Bill Krawetz and Rachel Hallaway working with The Beast. (Rich Lawton photo)
Paul Schwarz, Bill Bambrick, Bill Krawetz and Rachel Hallaway working with The Beast. (Rich Lawton photo)

They had to manually cut back large amounts of vegetation in the grove itself—and there was a lot of fencing that was damaged in the grove that needed to be repaired or rebuilt. Then there was the actual trail work: “A lot of the trails in the back had to be re-groomed and re-sloped, there were several slides back there.” This involved “trail tread work” especially around the Colonial Armstrong tree to the Icicle Tree. “A lot of that had been sloughed off so it was a slide, there was no trial there. The mud and the dirt had come down after the fire and the rains. So we had to go in and remove all that dirt and get the trail tread back, which involves getting a trail slope that is almost level and easy to walk.” And when water comes off the hills and washes down across the trail and continues on down the hill, they need the water to run across the trail—generally at a 4° to 6° angle to be “hydrologically invisible”. All this involved lots of heavy shovel and wheelbarrow work, as well as fire tools like a Mattock and McLeod—often on very difficult slopes and terrain.

The early days of Walbridge

On Sunday and Monday (August 16/17, 2020) there were over 10,000 lightning strikes, resulting in over 350 ignitions. Brendan recalled the early days of the Walbridge event. He went into Austin Creek as the smoke columns began to appear on Walbridge Ridge. “Fire crews were spread too thin on other fires to respond and it was becoming clear that Austin and Armstrong were going to be impacted within 24 hours.” So he drove to Bullfrog Pond and told all the campers that they needed to evacuate. At the same time Walbridge was getting traction, out on the coast, the Meyers Fire was rapidly expanding, threatening Fort Ross, where there were hundreds of irreplaceable and culturally important artifacts that had to be protected—as well as evacuating the entire area. This responsibility fell to the State Parks team.

Charred trees stand strong in Armstrong Redwoods. David Rosen photo.
Charred trees stand strong in Armstrong Redwoods. David Rosen photo.

Brendan was working in the upper areas during the days after the fire came through. “We knew we had old growth redwoods still burning in their cavities—and some of these can become hazardous. So we have a lot of mop up work to do at this point. And mop up is 200 ft from the fire line out. It has to be cold everywhere. So we worked on all those perimeter areas, took care of that, and as we’re doing that, there’s 300 ft tall redwoods that are still on fire on the inside that are often not visible from the outside.” These are known as a “Goosepens” because the early settlers used to keep their geese in them. So Brendan created a solution on the fly—he found an infrared camera that could connect to his phone and he used a mapping program to catalog the Goosepens.

Scotty Lawyer splitting logs (Rich Lawton photo)
Scotty Lawyer splitting logs (Rich Lawton photo)

And then just before their intended Memorial Day re-opening, it was decided that additional hazardous trees needed to be removed by helicopter. Almost 3,000 trees were removed and loaded into the front parking lot. Justin and Michele said that those were mostly from Austin Creek and only a very small percentage were redwoods—most of them small. The majority of those removed were firs and tanoaks. This took a heavy toll on the front lot. There was a lot of damage, but Rich said that “thankfully the septic system did not get totaled out and the water line did not get wrecked.”

And there’s still a lot more to do. Work on all the areas above the valley, including Bullfrog Pond, the East Ridge and Pond Farm are still going to take quite some time. Rich explained that “In some of the areas there is a fuels reduction program that’s been going on for a long time. There are areas within the grove and just outside the grove, still inside Armstrong where there’s a lot of trees and stuff that need to be removed for fuel reduction—a lot of the firs that have come in and started to take over the environment, making it harder for the oaks to grow. They would normally disappear under normal fire conditions, but because Smokey Bear came in 100 years ago, and then “every fire was bad” and we put them all out, we’re now paying that price—and we’re trying to mitigate it, mostly manually.”

Paul Schwartz digging a new post hole on the entrance road to Armstrong Redwoods. (Rich Lawton photo)
Paul Schwartz digging a new post hole on the entrance road to Armstrong Redwoods. (Rich Lawton photo)

When culture and nature clash

Brendan echoed the reference to Smokey: “Popular culture has created this idea where parks are these places where no fire should be, but all these habitats need disturbance of some kind. Fire and floods are critical for redwoods. Having some dead standing trees is a good thing, it’s a habitat for lots of living things, and when they lay on the ground they also become habitats for all sorts of other living things. A lot of the current condition of the parks comes from the absence of fire. Native Americans used fire extensively on our landscape. The Fire Return Interval here on average was 10 years or less. We have historic studies that show we had an average 6-to-9-year Fire Return Interval along the coast. So even in a low intensity fire like we had coming down into the park, we had fuel on the ground from a hundred years of no fire in the park, all that accumulated fuel burns and causes more impacts.”

“You don’t remove risk, you reduce it.”

And like most of the fire experts I have spoken with over the last year, they ALL point to Home Hardening and Defensible Space as critical work that each and every one of us can and should do.

But our culture, our society has not been supportive of prescribed fire. Although that may finally be changing due to the severity and frequency of our fires—as people are becoming more aware of the value of these preventive vegetation management processes that nature used to be allowed to do on its own. “I think we’re finally turning that corner, there’s a lot more interest in this now. We’re increasing the pace and scale of our thinning of the understory in parts of the park, and we will use prescribed fire in Armstrong Redwoods in the coming years.”

Scotty Lawyer trying to free a trapped tree at Bullfrog Pond (Rich Lawton photo)
Scotty Lawyer trying to free a trapped tree at Bullfrog Pond (Rich Lawton photo)

And Brendan also has a lot of hope for the future of those working on solutions. “When I started, there weren’t many people doing this. Today there’s a wealth of people trying to get into this type of work, they’re all smart and I think we have a great generation of good people coming up behind us, and I’m excited to see the next version of this. There’s a lot of young folks in their 20s and 30s that have grown up with this and are really on it. It’s very cool to see the cadre of folks coming up.”

But his optimism is tempered with the reality of how severely generations of aversion to fire and rapidly increasing climate change have impacted our environment today. “As a scientist, I read all this stuff when I was younger, we theorized about this, I’ve known we’re trending in this direction—but how quickly it’s happened, and the impacts of that, and what that looks like—are far more cataclysmic than any of us could have understood.”

“I don’t think the public really understands what’s at stake—not only for the parks, but for where so many people live these days. This is just the beginning. This is not the end of this. We’re on a trajectory right now that is incredibly frightening for our world that we know and love, and the resources—the river, the beauty that surrounds you. We have to get a lot more serious about managing our planet and living in a sustainable way. I think there are a lot of people out there that have a lot of care for that and who understand it, but right now I just don’t see action being taken that’s going to get us there. We’re trending in a direction that’s really scary. I’m not trying to be a hand-wringer here, I’m telling you as a scientist, the direction we’re heading is not good.”

“What we live in now, today, may not replicate. I’m not sure of the trajectory we’re moving in now. We may not be re-establishing old growth redwood forests in areas that have burned. They just may not have the seedling generation that we had a thousand years ago or even 200 years ago. We don’t have the fog, we have different temperatures now, we have people walking all over these groves...” This means that after millions of years of redwoods here (redwoods have been around for about 240 million years, and in California for at least 20 million years), through all the natural “disasters,” even through the massive logging through the 1800s-1900s, the redwoods always regenerated. And we may now be reaching a tipping point where that may not happen.

But for now, the good news is that the fire was good for Armstrong Redwoods. “Fire really is just the inverse of photosynthesis. Those two things are like Yin and Yang—and they belong together. The fire was a good thing. It got a lot of thinning done, we now have more important nutrients that are being cycled into the system. There are certain vegetation types that require fire and we’re going to get more regeneration. There’s more water in the creeks because there’s less vegetation soaking it up—in fact, we had better water flow for the Steelhead and Coho in the burned areas than in the unburned areas of the County.”

And Michele made it clear that there is deep support for the parks. “The funding that has been coming through has been wonderful. There’s great fire recovery money available, and it hasn’t been a problem for State Parks to be able to get the work done that needs to get done.” And for visitors returning to the park, “We developed a new Fire Ecology Brochure that we’ll be handing out to people, plus there’s a new map showing people where they can go and where they can’t go right now, because it’ll be a while before we open up the upper loop trails.”

Another change that you will notice is that there will be a parking fee in the front parking lot of Armstrong, which used to be free. Last year, Stewards and State Parks met with members of the community who supported this change in order to raise much needed funding to support large infrastructure projects at Armstrong Redwoods and Austin Creek. The $10 you invest in your park (or $9 for seniors) will be well spent. And for those who cannot afford the fee, the Stewards Board of Directors has set up a fund to assist you. You can apply for a one-day fee waiver here. You can also visit their website for info on additional special passes that are available, including a Disabled Discount Pass, Distinguished Veteran Pass, Golden Bear Annual Pass and a new Adventure Pass for 4th graders.

New path protecting the trees (David Rosen photo)
New path protecting the trees (David Rosen photo)

And there’s more good news... Maya Khosla is a poet, Wildlife Biologist and filmmaker, as well as one of the organizers of the Sonoma 2021 Climate Summit. Maya is also a recipient of the 2020 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for her book All The Fires of Wind and Light, placing her in the company of Paul Robeson, Norman Mailer, Stephanie McCurry, Tongo Eisen-Martin, J. P. Dancing Bear, Gary Snyder, Rebecca Solnit, Juan Felipe Herrera, Li-Young Lee, Joy Harjo, and Gerald Stern, to name-drop just a few. In 2018 she created a beautiful short film of her poem “Rejuvenation” about the rebirth of our post-fire forests—and she is currently working on a film documenting the rebirth of Armstrong Redwoods and Austin Creek. “If your first glance tells you these forests are lifeless—wait and look again! This summer and fall, my friends and I made our way through private and public lands that experienced the Walbridge Fire in 2020. The robins and varied thrushes, bobcats, deer and foxes are back in the burned forests. Horsetails and ferns are proliferating along the creeks, and redwood trees that are charcoaled from top to bottom are alive—new sprouts are coming up from the ground and leaves are emerging from the charred bark of trunk and branches (what scientists call epicormic branching). Oaks and majestic madrones that were burned are putting out new leaves. Woodpeckers and bluebirds have nested in the snags—the standing dead trees. We look forward to documenting the return of life in Armstrong Redwoods and Austin Creek.”

Like the forest itself, there are so many wonderful people associated with Armstrong who are alive with the possibilities.

The majestic redwoods are still majestic. David Rosen photo.
The majestic redwoods are still majestic. David Rosen photo.

At the end of our time together, I asked Brendan what his feelings were while working on the fire, mop up and ongoing restoration. “They’re complicated. There were moments that were some real highs and some real lows. More than anything else, I’m glad that it ended well. And it’s not over yet, but I look at this in the context of my peer group as well, because some of my friends worked down at Big Basin Redwoods (which occurred at the same time as Walbridge, but 97% of the park was devastated—an area three times the size of San Francisco). I’ve been here 20 years and I’ve pretty much dedicated my life to managing California’s beautiful landscapes. I think that most of my colleagues, we all share these thoughts—I don’t want to sound overly corny—but it’s an honor and a privilege to do the work that we do. And we all have a lot invested in the work that we’ve done, and to see something that you care so much about threatened, it’s incredible, it’s emotional. I raised my kids in that park. I’m disappointed with our society that as usual we’re reactive and not proactive. I’m just glad that it wasn’t as bad as I feared it could be. And I hope we can do better in the future. At the end of day, Mother Earth will be just fine. She is going to take care of her business. It’s humanity, it’s my children that I worry about, it’s my grandchildren... That’s the bigger emotion that this brings on for me.”

David in the trees. David Rosen photo.
David in the trees. David Rosen photo.

I could see this was clearly an emotional conversation for him—and it was then I knew that we were in very good hands with someone who cared so much.

We've moved our commenting system to Disqus, a widely used community engagement tool that you may already be using on other websites. If you're a registered Disqus user, your account will work on the Gazette as well. If you'd like to sign up to comment, visit https://disqus.com/profile/signup/.
Show Comment