Ukiah Valley Trails Group

Rerouting Valley View Trail

In November of 2008 we built a 1/4 mile long reroute on Valley View Trail. The four mile Valley View trail was built by the California Conservation Corps back in the '70s. It's a really tough area in which to build trail because the scrub brush and manzanita is so thick. It's a wonderful trail that leads to awesome views of the Ukiah Valley with excellent opportunities for birders, botanists, bikers, and hikers. The trail is open to equestrians, but most will find the access difficult and the trail demanding and narrow.

Some of the sections of the trail are steeper than we would like, making it arduous and subject to erosion. Our reroute project bypassed one of the most eroded sections on the trail and provided a gentler new route with better views as a bonus. We have more improvements we hope to make to the trail but are proud of this one as a first step.

The section we bypassed climbed the low point of a fall line so what ever rain fell in the vicinity would drain onto, and down, the trail. Our trail became a creek and was gradually getting deeper and deeper.

We flagged a new route that contoured around a bluff, away from the fall line and to some nice views, then reconnected with the trail at the top of the ridge. We started by cutting back the brush along the new route with more than 100 volunteer hours just to clear the path. Then it was another couple hundred hours of work to establish the new trail tread. With a little bit of re-vegetation to hide the old route, most trail users will pass this area with no idea of all the improvements that were made!