Mike Hike & Bike Landfill Loop and Glass Beach Trails

Marshes
The marshes that give the wildlife area its name. The capped landfill that we'll hike around can be seen on the right.
User: Austin Explorer - 8/22/2021

Location: Napa-Sonoma Marshes Wildlife Area

Rating: 3stars
Difficulty: 2stars  Solitude: 3stars
Miles Hiked: 4.21 Miles  Elapsed Time: 1 hour, 50 minutes

Comments:

Coppertone and I went back to the Napa-Sonoma marshes to maps some more of the trails.  Unlike our last visit here the parking lot was not full, so that was a refreshing change.

Starting off from the trailhead we did the Mike Hike & Bike Landfill Loop Trail.  That name makes it sound fairly gross but the landfill has long been capped.  It resembles a large hill, though with numerous water and methane pipes running in all directions on it.  One is not going to confuse it with a natural formation.  The ground squirrels didn't seem to mind the pipes and in fact use them defensively as they scurry about.

One need only look away from the mound to see scenes that at least appear more natural.  Marshes surround the landfill and some spots are teaming with wading birds looking for their next meal.  In other spots birds use the relative safety of water to rest on their long migrations.

The western side of the landfill seems to be very popular with Redwing Blackbirds.  We spotted flock after flock flying by or foraging on the landfill slopes.  I'm not sure that we had seen that many Redwing Blackbirds on any other hike.

Look for numerous Napa-Solano Audubon Nature Trail signs on this and other trails in the marshes.  Each provides a drawing and description of one of the many birds that can be seen from the trail.

After completing the landfill loop we crossed over a canal to walk the Glass Beach Trail.  Having seen a glass beach in Mendocino that was rather impressive, Coppertone was not expecting much here.  It is certainly smaller than the beach we'd seen north of here, but there is an impressive amount of glass nevertheless.

Much of the trail is a straight shot that follows both berms that define a canal leading out to the Glass Beach.  Along this path you'll also spot an impressive cluster of Century Plants, a few of which had impressive tree-height stalks reaching for the sky.  Previous stalks that had collapsed resembled tree trunks due to their girth.

In the end we totaled a bit more than 4 miles of hiking on very flat terrain.



Log Photos
Marshes
Trail View
American Canyon
Wading birds