Liberty Glen at Lake Sonoma

Lake Sonoma is man-made reservoir that was formed after the US Army Corps of Engineers built the Warms Springs earth dam across the Dry Creek in 1982. This is one of California's younger reservoirs. To reach the lake and campground, we drove through the Dry Creek Valley that is dotted with world famous vineyards. This drive in the autumn is beautiful since the leaves on grape vines are red. After the climb out of the valley and crossing the bridge over the reservoir, we were rewarded with a beautiful COE campsite to enjoy for the evening.

There are 96 campsites at Liberty Glen. Since very few folks were camping, we were able to pick our location without great trepidation over who would be next to us. Two sites down on the left was a young couple camping with their little tyke, and nobody for eight campsites to the right of us. All was quiet! This is the road just out of our site.

After quickly settling into the camp, we headed off for a late afternoon hike. We started our hike around 3 pm. After checking the map to make sure we were headed on the correct trail, we make our way.

We started our descent to the lake by way of the Madrone service road. This is a view from the top before heading down.

As we make our leisurely walk down, we disturb a family of deer that were enjoying the sunshine. They went running off after they heard us coming.

Our hike takes us past many beautiful Madrone trees. This nicely shaped one is a very young tree.

The Madrone tree, Arbutus menziesii, is a very drought tolerant tree that has a very prominent red bark. Here is a very much older Madrone that has some Spanish moss growing on it.

Spanish moss isn't really a moss, but an air plant, bromeliad, that likes to suck the life out of trees. This close up of the Spanish moss shows it growing on an Oak.

Our first sight of the lake from the trail. Sadly, the lake is very low due to the drought.

We come to the junction of the Rancheria trail and the Cove trail. We take the trail to the right, Rancheria trail. It meanders along the side of the hill with views of the lake below.

The side of the hills are dotted with Madrones and Oaks. We continue for 1.85 miles until we reach a spring and the trailhead that will take us back to the campground. The climb up Wulfow shortcut is mark as a "death march", but we didn't find the climb to be as strenuous as the climbs we made at Las Trampas (those were killer climbs).

The total hike was over 4 miles round trip from the campsite. As the evening air turned cold, we returned to camp.

Later we sat in our dinette eating a hearty chicken vegetable soup while admiring the view from our campsite.

Liberty Glen campground was a very pleasant surprise for us. I would come back to camp here again in the autumn, winter, or early spring. There are trails that connect together to form one long trail that circumnavigates a portion of the lake. I would be satisfied with just exploring the Dry Creek trail down to the lake on the next visit.

This gem of a lake is nestled in a very beautiful area.