My curiosity about trails named for people usually works this way: I walk the trail first and ask questions after. Who was this person? What did they love about this place?
In the case of the David Hansen Trail, though, the usual sequence was flipped. I have been privileged to work closely with the namesake open space advocate for years now as part of Sonoma Mountain Preservation’s board of directors. But what was this? A David Hansen Trail? Why was it named for my friend and mentor? Was it cool?
To answer the why, you can read all about David’s remarkable career in his interview with Soneile Hymn, SMP’s communications specialist. As for the cool … well, no better way to get the inside scoop on a trail than by walking it …
The David Hansen Trail is in Roy’s Redwoods Preserve, a Marin County open space park that’s literally just over the hill from my childhood home in Fairfax. Roy’s Redwoods was once a secluded, rough-and-tumble haunt that my high school friends frequented to do the things teenagers do. Now that Marin County Parks has completed new trail system in the redwood groves, boardwalks offer easy, poison oak-free passage for hikers and protection for the critters and plants abiding in riparian zones along intermittent Larsen Creek. The preserve is bordered by the relatively new San Geronimo Park, a former golf course once frequented by my father, who went there to do the things golfing dads do. As the course rewilds, great white and great blue herons frequent the water hazards-turned-ponds doing the things herons do. The transformations are profound and have been delightful to rediscover.
To reach the David Hansen Trail, I followed the Boardwalk Trail to the Forest Trail, then the Forest Trail to the Mossy Rocks Trail, and then climbed the Mossy Rocks Trail to the Roy’s Redwoods Loop Trail. The linkages sound complicated but if you stay right at all the junctions, heading up-valley and climbing gently from the redwoods into chaparral, you’ll reach the loop trail junction in about a half-mile.
Stay right on the Roy’s Redwoods loop at the junction, climbing little more than a quarter-mile to the signed junction with the David Hansen Trail, which breaks off to the right. The trail is 0.35-mile long, a perfectly graded singletrack lollipop loop as elegant and understated as David himself. After a straightforward climb through mixed woodland, my trusty pooch Roxy and I reached the only trail fork on the path and went left. We circled the summit of the park’s forested high point, which offers filtered views down into the San Geronimo Valley. A brief descent through firs closed the circuit, and we headed back down the lollipop stick to reconnect with the Roy’s Redwoods Loop Trail.
We could have retraced our steps to the trailhead, but instead Roxy and I took the long way around. Turning left on nicely graded loop trail, we continued downhill through woodlands into a grassy valley cradling a seasonal stream. The trail emerged from the valley next to Sir Francis Drake Boulevard and bent sharply west, paralleling the busy roadway for about half a mile back to the rewilding golf course. There, the route hitched above the clubhouse and then bent northward, paralleling Nicasio Valley Road and rolling back to the boardwalks at the trailhead.
We finished our walk by exploring the boardwalks, which were bustling with young wildland stewards in the making, curiously poking sticks into the duff and calling to their friends to witness their discoveries. David, I’m sure, would approve.
