One of the special things about winter hiking is the show taking place in the sky. Whether a dark storm is approaching, puffy clouds are clearing or the setting sun casts an orange glow, winter skies can be breathtaking in Sonoma County's parks. Here are three suggestions for cloudy day hikes .
Got hikers and campers on your holiday lists? Give them a year of adventures in Sonoma County's parks! A Regional Parks' gift membershipincludes a year of parking at Doran Beach,
Spring Lake and more than 50 other parks and a night of camping. You can pick up a gift membership now at REI, Oliver's Markets, Sonoma Outfitters, Sebastopol Hardware, Garrett Ace Hardware and Copperfield's Books in Petaluma.
Families, let's see how many feathered friends the kids can spot on a bird walk around Spring Lake on Saturday, Dec. 14. This event is modeled after the annual Christmas Bird Counts that take place across the country. We'll see how many species we can identify and then record and share our data.
Did you know the Laguna de Santa Rosa was an area where nomadic gatherings occurred? Who inhabited this watershed and how do we continue to benefit from the biodiversity of wetlands? We'll investigate the Laguna's cultural history on Saturday, Dec. 14, with a scavenger hunt revealing what the landscape looked like long ago.
Join us for a community posada at Andy's Unity Park on Saturday, Dec. 20, with our partners at LandPaths. Enjoy songs by candlelight and fun activities for kids, including a traditional holiday piñata. We'll serve pozole and warm drinks, and we encourage you to bring a dish to share as well.
Planning your year-end charitable giving? Please remember the Sonoma County Regional Parks Foundation. Your gift to the Parks Foundation supports our fire recovery work, sends kids to summer camps, helps us build and maintain trails and lets us better protects wildlife and habitats.