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Sonoma County, a dynamic county combining agriculture and industry, City and country, creating unique and varied challenges for its citizens join us as we present some of the information and services provided by the county of Sonoma to help us as we move into the 21st century. Welcome

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to Sonoma County in the 90s with your host Dana Rico and Gina Lash. Welcome to Sonoma County in the 90s were fortunate to live in one of the most beautiful places in the world. And on this edition of Sonoma County in the 90s, you're going to

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be able to learn how about how to access a lot of that beauty were for fortunate to have with us today. Bill True. Nick. Sonoma County Park ranger and paul. Larson State Park ranger. Welcome to both of you. This is really exciting to hear about how

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we can use and take advantage of the beauty that we live in. I'm gonna start out by asking you paul, how long have you been a park ranger? I've been a ranger since 1973. And Bill, what about you? I've been a park ranger for about 13

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years, but with Sonoma County for about seven years now and paul getting back to that. Have you always been with the state as a ranger or have you ever worked in any other area of the parks? No, I've always been a state park ranger and I've

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worked in some of the most beautiful parks in California. Okay, um, that leads us right into the next question paul, could you describe for us, some of the beautiful parks you worked in and some of the things that you really liked about those parks You can

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start out with one. Well, my favorite park is in Big Sur, a place called Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. It's just gorgeous. It's uh, it's really rugged. Mountains drop right into the ocean. There's a waterfall, 80 ft waterfall that drops into the ocean. I was fortunate

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to live in a house overlooking the waterfall. That's just gorgeous. Are there trails in that park that people can use good trails? So if we wanted to go there, where would we go at that specific park? Well, it's part of the Big Sur District and headquarters

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is at Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park in the heart of Big Sur. And there right now with the cutbacks, there probably isn't going to be a ranger at Julia Pfeiffer Burns for the customers to contact. So the best bet would be to contact Pfeiffer Big Sur

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State Park and ask the questions. Bill, you're a Sonoma County Park ranger. What would you say is special about Sonoma County Regional parks. I'd say the diversity that we have in Sonoma County Regional parks, we have campgrounds, we have athletic fields, we have uh, primitive parks

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that have nothing but trails in them. We've got developed parks such as spring lake that has the campground, a paved bike path, athletic fields in some of our other parks, Just all the diversity that we have in Sonoma County parks? Where are some of the parks

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in Sonoma County. Well, uh, right here on our map we have for the public, we have them listed. We've got quite a few along the coastal area, particularly up in the Guatemala area. We have some campgrounds up there. We also have some campgrounds over in the

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Dorne Beach bodega Bay area and then we move into the center part of the county and we go from Healdsburg Veterans Memorial Beach down along the 101 corridor to Helen, Putnam Regional Park down in Petaluma, then over to Spring Lake Park and then all the way

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out to Sonoma Valley at Maxwell Regional Park. How many parks do we have in Sonoma County County parks? Sonoma County Regional Park Have about 30 to park facilities, whether that's trails or regional parks or campgrounds. You know, you mentioned that all of these parks have a

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variety of facilities. What are some of the specific facilities and feel free to zero in on one of your favorite parks to talk about facilities. Okay. We have, like I was mentioning quite a variety of facilities at for example, Regular Ranch Regional Park. We've got six

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athletic fields, soccer and a ball field and group picnic areas and gazebo area volleyball courts, tennis courts, that's all in the front part of it in the back part of the park. We have what's considered a marshland wetlands area that has several trails going through it

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now personally. one of my most favorite parks is Shiloh Ranch Regional Park and that's about 850 acres and we've got trails throughout that whole park and we've just developed a group picnic area there as well. It's a very favorite park for horseback riders because it is

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a very steep terrain park from the parking lot up to what we call the vista is about a mile and a half, but it has over a 500 ft elevation gain. So if you were out there hiking it, you get rather winded, but the horses seem

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to love it and we've mountain bikes are also allowed there. But again, because of the steep terrain, not too many mountain bikers go up there and it's a very beautiful area. Once you get up to the vista, you can see from Windsor where Shiloh is located

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all the way down to Rohnert Park. Shiloh is, you're seeing runs all the way down, you can see all the way down to the park. That's really a nice view, paul. How many state parks are there in California? 260. And where are you located within those

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260 state parks right now. I work in the napa valley. I work at both. A napa state park. Also bale grist mill state historic park and robert louis Stevenson State Park. Those are my areas of responsibility. Did you say it was an historical state park. Is

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that what you smell is a historical state park, 18 46 mil. That's been restored by the state in 1988. It's kind of an exciting place because we mill flour mill corn just as it was done in 18 46. And we do have demonstrations on weekends. That's

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what I was going to ask you. So there are demonstrations, are their tours specific. We, we have a whole combination tour, demo type of a thing, tour on the history on how the wheel runs and then we actually go in and grind. That is wonderful. Do

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a lot of school tours Then right now we've got some there today. Really, peak time for school tours. Bill told us a little bit about the facilities that are offered to people at county parks. What are some of the facilities at state parks? We've got a

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wide array of facilities, campgrounds, hiking trails, picnic areas. Jack London State Park has really has a museum, just you name it. We've got it. Any areas and you both can answer this bill or paul. Any areas that people can go swimming in either county or state

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parks. We've got the only one of only two swimming pools in the state park system at both a napa state park and the pool will be open from Memorial Day to Labor Day. It's open from noon to six at Healdsburg Veterans Memorial Beach. We put up

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the summer seasonal dam and that should be opening well from Memorial Day to Labor Day. And we also have the swimming lagoon at Spring Lake Regional Park. And there's also swimming out at dawn beach out in the ocean itself. There's no lifeguards at Dorn. But we

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do have lifeguards at both Healdsburg Veterans Memorial Beach and Spring Lake Park. And do they have fees associated with going swimming there? Yeah we do charge a regular day use fee for all three of those areas. Spring Lake is $4 when the swimming lagoon is open

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and Healdsburg is $3 and it's also $3 out of. What kind of crowds do you get in the summertime? Coming to those places packed. Yeah it's not uncommon for us to have to close the gates to the parking lots because we are completely full. So that's

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really interesting. So what you're telling our viewers is if they want to go swimming they better come early, right if they want to park close to the way we always do allow walk ins. But if they want to be close to their vehicle come early. Let's

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talk a little bit about camping facilities at county parks. And then we'll hear about camping facilities in state parks. Do you want to describe the camping facilities in Sonoma County. Sure we have what is commonly called in the camping terminology. We don't have any hooker. We

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don't have any electrical or sewer hookup or water hookups to an R. V. S. But we have primitive sites in that. You have a picnic area and I mean a picnic table and a barbecue and a paved parking spot for you to park in. And we

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have quite a few campgrounds. We have some up at Gwala Stillwater cove. Both of those are up on the north coast and then west side and Doran beach. Those are in the bodega bay area. Spring Lake park is also a campground paul. What about camping in

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the state parks? Well, I'll just address Noma County and you can expand beyond that. We've got some great campgrounds in Sonoma County starting with Sugarloaf 50 unit camp campground. That's right in the Sonoma Valley. It's just gorgeous up there more or less a wilderness park. There

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are no showers but some folks that doesn't bother them for a few days, No hookups. Moving right on over to the coast from Sugarloaf to the data dunes to write speech Snowmen coast. Those are between bodega bay and the river Jenner. Then further up is Salt

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Point in inland. Armstrong redwoods. They have a campground, just a wide array of state campgrounds. However, camping fees have gone up here recently because of our revenue shortfall right now they're $15 from Sunday through Thursday and then prime time Friday and Saturdays is $16. Okay. What

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about reservations because I know that's real tricky. Yeah that's that's a real hot topic. We're on a reservation system through Destiny. People can make reservations up to seven months in advance. And it's very important during the busy season to make reservations, especially on Fridays and Saturdays

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for most state parks because if you don't have a reservation, you're probably not going to get in. And bill does one need a reservation for the county parks. They don't need it. But it is recommended and you can call up the individual park and get reservations

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there. Some of Spring Lake does have only a limited number of sites that are on reservation. The others are strictly first come, first serve. And there is a fee associated with. And I'm gonna bring this back so that our viewers can jot down this number. But

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I know you have something called an annual pass. Could you um in a minute just tell us what an annual pass is and the phone number and we'll repeat that again. Sure. Our annual past promotion goes from May 1 to the end of June and it's

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for $40. And with that pass you get unlimited day use fees waived in the regional parks and therefore you can come to any of the county parks for free. You also get a $20 gift certificate from the rent outdoors. And you also get a certificate free

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for our county campgrounds for one night and a two for one offer from Spreckels performing arts down in Rohnert Park. And so that's all for the $40 in the past number is 5 to 7 to 041. For more information. That's great. We're going to repeat that

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again. We're going to stop now for a public service announcement and when we get back we're going to be learning more about beautiful areas in our state. If you feel a product has too much packaging call and let the company know because you don't need it.

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Our landfills don't need it and chances are the product doesn't need it. Look for the shop smart campaign at your local supermarket. Welcome back to Sonoma County in the nineties. Today we're learning about the beauty in Sonoma County and the state. We have a county park

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ranger with us, Bill True and a state park ranger paul. Larson welcome back to both of you paul. You've talked about your favorite park in the state. What's your favorite park in Sonoma County? I like Sugarloaf, Sugarloaf Ridge State park primarily because of the fantastic trails.

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The best thing is to hike up the bald mountain. It's just gorgeous hike up the bald mountain. It's only about three miles and you feel like you're on top of the world. You can see the Ocean Sea Mount Diablo. You see the city san Francisco and

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it's just really an exhilarating feel. How difficult is that hike would you say? It's a little steep, it's rather steep. So you need to and also you need to bring water, bring some energy food and it just take your own time like however fast you want

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and there's numerous stops along the way. Is it a paved trail or is it a dirt trail? Well you can take a paved road part way up or you can take the trail all the way up. You know, I want to ask you some questions paul

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brought up about bringing water. Let's talk a little bit about safety when you're hiking on some of these trails. What kinds of things should hikers remember in terms of safety? And either one of you can address that. Well, I think one of the first things to

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do is to let somebody know where you're going and how long you're expected to be and to check in with them after you get back because we have had calls people say this person's hours overdue. Well, where did they go? And they tell you? And were

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they hiking to the summit? Well, they thought the trip was shorter than what it actually is. And so there's some misinformation sometimes. So instead of calling out the search and rescue right away, we know, OK, this person might be overdue from what they thought, but they're

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not overdue yet. And then there was always the natural things to be aware of in several of our parks, we have rattlesnakes and there's also ticks and there was always everybody's friend the mosquitoes and we also do have skunks on occasion. Have you had much problem

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in the county with snakes? Well, not as a problem per se. We do have, they are the residents of the park. And when we do have rattlesnakes in the park, we do try to post it so that you are aware that they are present in the

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park. And if you do hear a rattle slowly back away from the noise, that's really good information, paul. We haven't really talked about the role of a ranger. I've always thought of a ranger. Someone there who gives tours and guides, tell us what your role is

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and what knowledge you have to have in order to become a state park ranger. Well, I think the stereotype of a state park ranger as ranger, just hiking, enjoying the flora and fauna and all the beauty, all the natural resources and there's quite a bit more

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to it than that. I'm so busy. I never have time to hike and enjoy the flora and fauna. Basically you have to look at a state park rangers role as the park as a city where the park ranger is responsible for everything that happens in the

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park. So wide spectrum goes from medical emergencies to law enforcement. We are state park peace officers. We do make arrest to interpretation to administration campground operations. Just kind of like a one stop shopping interesting. Now when you talk about emergency situations, Do you have to have

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any kind of certification or license be a ranger since you're dealing with emergency situations? Well, we're trained as first responders and some rangers are emergency medical technicians. And so it is a requirement, however, in order to become a state park ranger right now you need 60

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units of credit college, But I might let you know that the competition is very tough. The last state park ranger cadet class, 30 folks were hired and 5000 people applied. So the competition is extreme. Just 60 units of college credit isn't gonna get you anywhere. So

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if you have the 60 units of college credit, do they look at experience you might have had in your past in areas of the parks. Certainly. And that's where working as a park aide, working, any work experience helps you out? Basically everyone has taken the test

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has a bachelor degree and so you have all these folks with bachelor's degrees taking the test. Well that gives them the edge on someone that has 60 units, but then the folks with the bachelor's degrees are separated by park experience. So if you have worked for

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years as a seasonal park aid and either maintenance or visitor services, that's going to give you the edge over all the other folks. So I can't be real optimistic. That can just be a park ranger right off the bat. It takes a lot. There's a lot

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to it. A lot of work required education and luck do you actually live where you're a ranger, Some rangers do live in the park's, Most parks have residents for rangers. However, I prefer not to live in the park because I've lived in a park for many

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years and that involves getting called out at night for emergencies lost and found every, everything so good thing about not living in the park is once you're off, you're off interesting even though it's beautiful, you don't want to live there at that point. Bill, is it

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that competitive in the county to become a county park ranger? Yes, it is. We have, well for myself this is the seventh agency that I've worked for. I've worked for state National City's different counties and things such as that. We have quite a bit of competition

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as well, not as much as the state does because we're a much smaller system, but it is just as competitive interesting. I guess it's a very popular profession. Let's talk a little bit about facilities and activities for families with Children in the county. Built any special

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activities in the summer time for families with young Children. Well, there's always the places to go swimming and also camping and we have special events that go on in some of our regional parks as well, like in august we have the the Grabenstein apple fair out

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at regal ranch regional park. We also have a lot of soccer tournaments and things going on in some of our other parks such as Maxwell Maxwell farms regional Park down in Sonoma Valley or out at regal ranch. So basically any of our regional parks you can

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go out to and see families having fun, any special activities paul in the summertime at the state parks certainly do have quite a few activities. Most state parks have junior ranger programs and also we have nature hikes, campfire programs. And for those folks that live right

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here in Sonoma County, it's a hot day and you want to jump in the pool, just come on over to both a napa state park, which is between Calistoga and ST Alina on highway 29 jump in the pool. That'll cool you off fast. You mentioned something

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junior park rangers. That's new, what qualifications does a young person need to become a junior park ranger? There's different activities basically. It goes up to like 12 years old for Children. We have activities on geology and natural history, cultural history, all aspects of that. And they

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get signed off on each activity and then after they participate in all of the activities they can get a junior ranger card, they can bring, they can participate in these activities at any state park because it's fairly standardized. So it's a lot of fun that kids

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like parents like it. Unfortunately. Some parents use it as a babysitting service. I'm just gonna ask you, it sounds like a great opportunity for a young person. Are these young people, all volunteers. Well, the, the people that are taking are basically usually campers. Um, folks that

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are doing the programs are volunteers because mostly volunteers as we have limited funds to hire any state park folks these days, we are really dependent on volunteers to lead these type of programs. Volunteers in the county park system. Yeah, we do one of the most extensive

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jobs that they have are what we call trail walkers. They go out and actually walk around in our trails in all the county parks and there are another set of eyes and ears for us and in case something like a tree is down or something, they

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can drop us a line saying, hey, go on out and fix this part of the trail for us. Let's talk a little bit about new things going on in our county parks, any expansion and any of the parks. And also maybe you could talk a little

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bit about what bike riders do at park since I bike ride. We have some new acquisitions coming online. Steelhead Beach out in the forest ville Mirabel area is slated to be open around september october of this coming year and we are also expanding the West County

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Trail particularly interest for bike riders because it will go from forest ville all the way to Well right now it's on llano Road and we are Merced Road. Excuse me. And we are also getting acquisition for merced down to Fulton Road. So there will be quite

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a more miles for you to ride on your bike. That's great. Anything special going on with the state parks and As far as bikes expansion expansion well, I don't, I don't think so. We're in a holding pattern right now. The state park system, we have some

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serious funding problems. We get like a half of 1% of the state budget. We're in competition with prisons and education. Unfortunately, state parks and resources are can't overcome that hurdle. So I don't see us expanding at this point in time. So if I was to ask

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each of you your favorite part about the job and you would answer in one sentence, what would that be bill probably having fun with the public? I am one of those that I love the natural setting and I love to be able to share that with

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the public that come out and visit our parks paul. What about you? What's your favorite part about being a ranger? My absolute favorite part is turning people on to nature and I get excited when I do a program and I see the enthusiasm after the program

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from the folks. It's, it's kind of a self gratifying thing and that's why I got into it initially and I still get to do that once in a while. Want to let our viewers know that phone number again if they want to get an annual pass

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for the Sonoma County parks, could you repeat the fee and the phone number for our viewers? It's $40 and we do take and Mastercard and the phone number is 5 to 7 to 041. Do you feel like a lot of people save money by getting this

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annual pass? Oh yes and not only that, but the parks also benefit as well from this and people can come out and enjoy the park's this way and it's pretty unlimited. The amount of usage on that one path. Yeah, I've seen some passes that have been

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so afraid from the amount of use. It's wonderful to see. Okay we're going to be closing now and I just want to ask you once again, your favorite part in the county Bill is Shiloh Ranch Regional Park. All your favorite part in the county of Sugarloaf

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in this state. Your favorite product is is a big place called Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. Great, thank you so much for watching Sonoma County in the nineties. I hope that we have given you the opportunity to learn about what you can do to access the

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beauty, not only in Sonoma County but throughout California have a great week and we'll be looking forward to seeing you next week. Bye. Okay