Jack London State Park waives fees after narrow escape from the flames

Glen Ellen’s state park will waive fees until end of the year, to give visitors connection with the healing power of nature.|

Fall Programs at Jack London

The Jack London “Saturday Hikes” will resume on Nov. 4, with weekly guided hikes starting at 10 a.m. from the Ranch parking lot. Hike guides will vary week-to-week but all will offer expertise in areas such as birding, wildflowers and wildlife. There will be no fees.

The “Hiking for Fitness” series, originally scheduled for Sugarloaf Ridge State Park, will resume this month at Jack London and other area parks. The fitness hikes increase in length and difficulty until a summit hike in December; that destination may be the summit of Sonoma Mountain, still accessible from Jack London State Park.

The “Sugar Shuttle” which offers one-way hikers a chance to traverse from North Sonoma Mountain Regional Park to Jack London, or the other direction, will be operating both on Dec. 11 and 12, again with no fee (though a $10 donation would be welcome). Information at tinyurl.com/y9tffaz7

“An Evening of Night Photography,” originally scheduled for Oct. 21, has been rescheduled for Saturday, Nov. 18. Photographer Ray Mabry will take participants through camera settings, equipment, tips, and techniques to make dramatic and even surreal evening images. Cost is $75, register online at jacklondonpark.com.

“A Mindful Walk,” a guided meditation and hike with Jeff Falconer, originally scheduled for Oct. 28, it has been rescheduled for Saturday, Dec. 9. It starts from the Ranch parking lot at 9:30 a.m.; contact the office at 938-5216 with questions.

Jack London State Historic Park is located at 2400 London Ranch Rd, Glen Ellen.

“We feel incredibly blessed, lucky, you name it – it’s miraculous.” So said Tjiska Van Wyk this week, marveling at the fact that Jack London State Historic Park escaped the October fires unscathed. Since 2013, Von Wyk has been the executive director of Jack London Park Partners, the non-profit group that runs the Jack London State Historic Park.

“We’re one of the few parks left standing,” she added, noting that both Trione-Annadel and Sugarloaf Ridge were closed indefinitely after suffering extensive fire damage that has yet to be fully evaluated. Sonoma Valley Regional Park and ACR’s Bouverie Preserve were also heavily burned.

The 1,400-acre Jack London Park has been shut down since Oct. 9 when the conflagration raced into Glen Ellen and along Sonoma Creek. Many events were canceled, the House of Happy Walls saw no visitors – and of course neither did the historic ruins of the Wolf House, itself the site in 1913 of the last major fire on the park grounds.

On Wednesday, Nov. 1, over three weeks after its emergency closure, Jack London Park opened again to visitors, and many of the events that were canceled have been rescheduled for the coming weeks. Even though the spare budget of the park relies heavily on the $10 parking fee charged at the entry kiosk, that fee will be waived until the end of the year.

“We felt obligated to waive fees to our park, because nobody has any place to go, frankly – and nature can be so restorative,” said Van Wyk. “Particularly when people are feeling anxiety and stress.”

The healing quality of nature is increasingly recognized – it’s fair to say the Japanese concept of shinrin-yoku (forest bathing) is the latest wellness trend, promoted by several area parks over the past couple of years, including at Jack London.

A walking mediation of sorts will be offered at the park on Saturday, Dec. 9, with Jeff Falconer of Agua Caliente, who has just self-published two meditation guides. While he doesn’t consider his technique forest bathing per se, Falconer does regard his “mindful walks” as increasing connectedness to nature, at a time when re-establishing that is important.

“We’ve all just got a lesson on the fury of nature,” he said, “so trying to get awareness of the full spectrum of things is a lot of what my mediation is about.”

Still, he adds, “it is just a hike. But a hike with some increased presence, and intentional awareness of our connection with and our need for nature and the beauty of nature.”

There has never been a better time to indulge in the healing power of nature, when the landscape is so scarred, and the psyche of so many is so fragile, agrees Von Wyk. “We feel really fortunate that we were saved, but we want to show our appreciation. The solace that nature and the park can provide is a way of healing, and it’s important for us to give back.”

That the fires burned almost 30 percent of the Sonoma Valley spared Jack London was remarkably fortunate, but Von Wyk is realistic about what that means. “The great news is that we did not burn, nothing was touched. The flip side is that we did not burn,” she said.

“We still have so much fuel piled up in the backcountry; we think we got our wake-up call. We’ve seen now, on a personal level, what wildfires can do.”

A campaign was started several years ago to increase the “defensible space” around all structures and clear away underbrush from the historic places and heavily-used trails, but it ran short of funds before the work was completed. The Park Partners are preparing to “re-jump-start” that effort, well aware that not doing so puts the park’s many historic assets at risk – like the House of Happy Walls, where Charmian London lived out her years (she died in 1955, almost four decades after her husband), and the Cottage where the couple had a few precious years of creative contentment.

Even the usual entry fee to the Cottage will be waived, again until the end of the year, to give families a chance to fully explore the Jack London mystique. But many of the valuable artifacts – removed for safe-keeping during the threat of fire in the second week of October – will be returned to the Cottage next week.

The House of Happy Walls museum, however, will remain closed for renovation until the end of the year, and its memorabilia preserved at a state park warehouse until that time.

This is the fifth year that the park has operated under the Jack London Park Partners, the group of nonprofits that took over management of the park when the state could no longer support it. Since that time, the Park’s visitation has only increased, from about 43,000 a year to over 85,000 – more than 100,000, if you include the audiences for the Transcendence Theatre productions.

And with the onset of fall, with cooler days and a red rainbow of foliage in both vineyard and woodland, the park is entering its most popular season. “October and November are particularly popular months –the beauty of this area in the fall is a big draw,” said Von Wyk. “So to waive fees is going to be a little bit of a hit for us.”

It’s a hit they’re prepared to take to help Sonoma heal.

Fall Programs at Jack London

The Jack London “Saturday Hikes” will resume on Nov. 4, with weekly guided hikes starting at 10 a.m. from the Ranch parking lot. Hike guides will vary week-to-week but all will offer expertise in areas such as birding, wildflowers and wildlife. There will be no fees.

The “Hiking for Fitness” series, originally scheduled for Sugarloaf Ridge State Park, will resume this month at Jack London and other area parks. The fitness hikes increase in length and difficulty until a summit hike in December; that destination may be the summit of Sonoma Mountain, still accessible from Jack London State Park.

The “Sugar Shuttle” which offers one-way hikers a chance to traverse from North Sonoma Mountain Regional Park to Jack London, or the other direction, will be operating both on Dec. 11 and 12, again with no fee (though a $10 donation would be welcome). Information at tinyurl.com/y9tffaz7

“An Evening of Night Photography,” originally scheduled for Oct. 21, has been rescheduled for Saturday, Nov. 18. Photographer Ray Mabry will take participants through camera settings, equipment, tips, and techniques to make dramatic and even surreal evening images. Cost is $75, register online at jacklondonpark.com.

“A Mindful Walk,” a guided meditation and hike with Jeff Falconer, originally scheduled for Oct. 28, it has been rescheduled for Saturday, Dec. 9. It starts from the Ranch parking lot at 9:30 a.m.; contact the office at 938-5216 with questions.

Jack London State Historic Park is located at 2400 London Ranch Rd, Glen Ellen.

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