Qualla: Jenner Headlands Preserve

Jenner Headlands Preserve: Introduction

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit BookOfDisquiet, CC BY-SA 4.0. In December 2025, a biologist surveying the East Branch of Russian Gulch found what no one had seen in this creek since 1965: juvenile coho salmon, darting through pools that restoration work had reopened after decades of blockage. The discovery was not an accident. It was the payoff of a sixteen-year effort that began when a coalition of land trusts, government agencies, and private donors spent $36 million to buy 5,630 acres of Sonoma Coast hillside and turn it into one of California's most ambitious conservation experiments. Jenner Headlands Preserve rises from Highway 1 to the ridgelines above, and every acre of it -- prairie, forest, stream, and fog -- is a bet that damaged landscapes can heal if you give them enough room.

Image: BookOfDisquiet | CC BY-SA 4.0

Jenner Headlands Preserve: From Ranches to Ridgelines

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit BookOfDisquiet, CC BY-SA 4.0. The land that became Jenner Headlands had been ranched for generations, its coastal prairie grazed, its old-growth redwoods logged. By the early 2000s, it was privately held and at risk of development -- a prospect that alarmed conservation groups eyeing the Sonoma Coast's shrink...

Image: BookOfDisquiet | CC BY-SA 4.0

Jenner Headlands Preserve: Prairie, Fog, and the Cathedral Tree

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit BookOfDisquiet, CC BY-SA 4.0. The preserve contains one of the largest remaining coastal prairies in Sonoma County -- 1,400 acres of grassland interspersed with redwood and Douglas fir forest, oak woodland, chaparral, and riparian corridors. The terrain rises sharply from near sea level to 2,090 feet, and the...

Image: BookOfDisquiet | CC BY-SA 4.0

Jenner Headlands Preserve: Highway of Wings

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nzeemin, CC BY-SA 3.0. Jenner Headlands sits along the Pacific Flyway, and fall raptor migration is one of its defining spectacles. From Hawk's Hill -- a knoll along the trail system designated for viewing -- visitors watch red-tailed hawks, sharp-shinned hawks, peregrine falcons, northern harriers, os...

Image: Nzeemin | CC BY-SA 3.0

Jenner Headlands Preserve: Healing the Streams

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit BookOfDisquiet, CC BY-SA 4.0. Conservation at Jenner Headlands has been hands-on and sometimes controversial. In Russian Gulch, crews removed large woody debris barriers that had blocked fish passage for decades, reopening spawning habitat for steelhead trout and -- as the 2025 coho discovery proved -- endang...

Image: BookOfDisquiet | CC BY-SA 4.0

Jenner Headlands Preserve: Sea to Sky

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit BookOfDisquiet, CC BY-SA 4.0. Jenner Headlands opened to the public on September 7, 2018, after three years of trailhead construction. The entrance on Highway 1 includes parking, picnic tables, restrooms with a living roof, and interpretive kiosks. A short ADA-accessible trail leads to Sentinel Point, where a...

Image: BookOfDisquiet | CC BY-SA 4.0