The 5 Best Redwood Hiking Trails in Sonoma County, From a 1,400-Year-Old Tree to a Fog-Cooled Coastal Grove

This is a dedicated redwood-specific companion to my Sonoma Valley wine country trails guide and highlights the best redwood hiking trails in Sonoma, offering a deliberately different focus since none of these five trails touch a vineyard. Here’s the short version: Armstrong Redwoods is the trail everyone means when they picture Sonoma County redwoods, the Grove of Old Trees is worth a stop specifically because almost nobody knows about it, and Willow Creek is the pick if you want your redwoods with fog and ocean air instead of inland heat.

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Two state park units, one small land-trust preserve, one county regional park, and one state park coastal addition make up this guide, and one section needed a real substitution rather than a small correction, as flagged above.

Key takeaways:

• The iconic grove: Armstrong Redwoods, featuring old-growth coast redwoods including the 1,400-year-old Colonel Armstrong Tree, ADA-accessible and shaded year-round.
• The rugged backcountry alternative: East Ridge Trail (Austin Creek State Recreation Area), offering quieter, more open terrain rising directly out of the main redwood grove.
• The quiet, uncrowded secret: Grove of Old Trees, a small, free, and genuinely under-visited reserve relative to its quality.
• Best forest diversity: Shiloh Ranch Regional Park, featuring redwood, oak, and madrone in one loop, with real fall color.
• Best coastal contrast: Willow Creek, featuring cooler, fog-influenced second-growth redwoods near the Russian River mouth.
• Dogs aren’t allowed on any trail at Armstrong Redwoods or Austin Creek, a state park rule that keeps showing up across this county’s parks.

Pioneer Nature Trail (Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve)

Trailhead access and parking at Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve (day-use fee)

Armstrong Redwoods charges a $10 per-vehicle day-use fee at its entrance kiosk near Guerneville. Dogs must stay on the paved road and aren’t allowed on any trail here.

What you’ll see: old-growth coast redwoods, including the 1,400-year-old Colonel Armstrong Tree

A flat, ADA-accessible 1.5 to 1.7-mile loop through a genuine old-growth grove, representing the largest remaining ancient redwood forest in Sonoma County. The Colonel Armstrong Tree, the grove’s oldest at over 1,400 years, stands about a half-mile easy walk from the entrance; the Parson Jones Tree, the tallest in the grove at over 310 ft, sits just 0.1 miles in.

Best time to hike the Pioneer Nature Trail: a shaded year-round option

Dense redwood canopy keeps this comfortable in nearly any season, making it one of the most reliable any-time destinations in this entire guide.

East Ridge Trail (Austin Creek State Recreation Area)

Trailhead access and parking at Austin Creek State Recreation Area

Reached via the same entrance road as Armstrong Redwoods, continuing uphill into the adjacent state recreation area. Dogs aren’t allowed on any trail or dirt road here either.

What you’ll see: a quieter, more rugged backcountry beyond Armstrong Redwoods

This roughly 4-mile climb rises about 1,500 ft directly out of the shade of Armstrong Redwoods into open oak woodland and chaparral, providing a genuinely different, more remote character than the crowded main grove below and connecting onward to the Pool Ridge Trail for those wanting more. Lingering damage from the 2020 Walbridge Fire closed much of this park for four years; most trails, including this one, reopened in 2025, though Gilliam Creek Trail specifically remains closed.

Best time to hike East Ridge Trail: spring for the greenest backcountry, before summer heat sets in

This exposed ridge terrain runs considerably hotter and drier than the shaded grove below by summer; spring offers the most comfortable conditions and the greenest hillsides.

Grove of Old Trees (Occidental)

Trailhead access and parking at the Grove of Old Trees, Occidental

Free and managed by the nonprofit land trust LandPaths, this trail is reached via a narrow one-lane road west of Occidental.

Parking is genuinely limited to one small lot, and reservations are now required during major holidays and other high-use periods to manage congestion.

What you’ll see: a small but genuine old-growth redwood preserve

This is a 48-acre reserve on a flat ridgetop. It is mostly second-growth by the reserve’s own description, but includes surviving old-growth trees among the regrowth, offering some of the same grandeur as Armstrong Redwoods in a far smaller, more quickly-hiked footprint.

Best time to hike the Grove of Old Trees: a quick, uncrowded any-season stop

This preserve’s small size and low profile keep it reliably uncrowded regardless of season, standing as a genuine contrast to the more heavily visited Armstrong Redwoods, even during peak wine-country tourist months.

Shiloh Ranch Regional Park Trail

Trailhead access and parking at Shiloh Ranch Regional Park, Windsor

A day-use fee applies at this Sonoma County Regional Park, the northernmost trail in this guide, in the foothills of the Mayacamas Mountains southeast of Windsor.

What you’ll see: a mixed redwood, oak, and madrone forest loop

Nearly 8 miles of interconnected trails wind through oak woodland, mixed evergreen forest, canyon creek, and a pond, offering a genuinely wider tree-diversity mix than the pure-redwood focus at Armstrong Redwoods or the Grove of Old Trees.

Much of the park burned in the 2017 Tubbs Fire, and burned trees remain visible in places, offering a real look at post-fire forest regeneration.

Best time to hike Shiloh Ranch: fall for madrone and oak color

Fall color from the park’s oak and madrone stands is a genuine seasonal draw here, distinct from the pure old-growth-grandeur appeal of the other redwood trails in this guide.

Willow Creek (Sonoma Coast State Park)

Trailhead access and parking at the Willow Creek trailhead, Sonoma Coast State Park

This is the only coastal-adjacent redwood trailhead in this guide, located near the mouth of the Russian River as part of a broader Sonoma Coast State Park addition protecting the Willow Creek watershed.

What you’ll see: second-growth redwoods along a coastal creek

Second-growth redwoods regrow along this coastal creek drainage, creating a cooler, fog-influenced habitat genuinely different from the inland groves at Armstrong Redwoods and Shiloh Ranch. The connecting Willow Creek Road corridor extends considerably farther for those wanting a much longer day, running well over 15 miles one-way toward Occidental for the truly ambitious.

Best time to hike Willow Creek: a cooler coastal alternative to inland redwood groves

Coastal fog keeps this trail noticeably cooler in summer than the inland groves elsewhere in this guide; it is the trail to pick specifically when an inland Sonoma summer day sounds like too much.

The trail I’d actually start with

If you’ve only got one redwood stop in Sonoma County, make it Armstrong Redwoods: it’s the trail that actually delivers the old-growth grandeur people come here for, in an easy, accessible loop. The Grove of Old Trees is the pick once you want the same feeling without the crowds, and Willow Creek is worth it specifically for the coastal contrast. Treat the East Ridge Trail as the real backcountry option at Austin Creek for now, since Gilliam Creek Trail remains closed.

For the vineyard-and-valley-floor side of this same county, my Sonoma wine country trails guide is the natural companion to this guide, and my Sonoma County hiking guide rounds out everything else the county has to offer. Given how much of this specific park carries real, recent wildfire history, my guide to seasonal hazards on California trails is worth a look before you go.

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