Mapping new West Wind Trail

West Wind Trail
Looking up the West Wind Trail from the Windsor Street trailhead.
User: Austin Explorer - 7/3/2022

Location: Helen Putnam Regional Park

Rating: 3stars
Difficulty: 3stars  Solitude: 2stars
Miles Hiked: 3.50 Miles  Elapsed Time: 1 hour, 50 minutes

Comments:

Coppertone and I returned to Helen Putnam since we were going to Petaluma anyway.  But we also recalled there was a new trail in the park not present during our last visit.

The new West Wind Trail starts at a new trailhead on Windsor Drive on the park's northern extreme.  Right away, the name of the trail is well earned as we are blasted by a stiff breeze.  There's some immediate elevation gain with the trail taking some of the sting out with wide switchbacks.  The slope here is all grass and the field mice seem to love it.  We saw several of them darting across the trail and scurrying into thick brown mats of grass.

Once the trail nears the top of the ridge above it tree cover becomes more common.  The new trail ends at a multitrail junction that had us scrambling for a game plan for the remainder of our hike.  We'd already mapped everything else previously.

We elected to complete a loop up on the ridge.  We started this off by taking the Filaree Trail towards Overlook Point.  Here we could watch over the houses along Windsor Drive below and further into Petaluma.  But we also notices the ridge on the opposite side of Windsor with trails that had us wondering what could be done there.  Perhaps on a future trip.

While admiring the view a couple of horse riders we had seen earlier ambled by.  Coppertone took a photo for them with their camera.

From the lookout we continued back to complete the loop using Ridge Trail, Panorama Trail and Pomo Trail.  Once at the trail junction we descended down West Wind Trail.  Things were decidedly more calm during our loop on the ridge with regards to the wind.  Once we returned to the West Wind Trail things picked up.

Everyone in the area seems to know about West Wind Trail and Helen Putnum in general.  It seemed there was scarcely a time when we were not within eyesight of someone else.  The 4th of July weekend may have had something to do with it.



Log Photos
West Wind Trail
Looking back
Overlook
Arroyo Trail
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