


Lovers of the region’s redwood forests and two state park reserves designed to protect remnant great ancients that once populated the landscape have new cause for celebration.
Save the Redwoods League has purchased 750 acres of privately owned land for eventual addition to popular Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve near Guerneville and Montgomery Woods State Natural Reserve in central Mendocino County.
Transfer of the lands to the state park system remains some years away, league representatives said.
Public access could begin sooner on what’s called the Armstrong Ridge Addition, the combined properties of two longtime families adjacent to Armstrong Redwoods that will be protected through conservation sales.
The purchases immediately help buffer groves of old-growth redwoods at the heart of each park while creating opportunities to restore younger forests and improve wildlife connectivity, league and park representatives said.
“Armstrong Redwoods and Montgomery Woods state reserves are unparalleled treasures in our district, safeguarding some of the world’s tallest trees — coast redwoods that have stood for over 1,000 years,” said Bill Maslach, Sonoma-Mendocino Coast district superintendent for California State Parks.
“Collaborating with Save the Redwoods League to preserve the last remaining stands of big trees and expand these parks is not just conservation. It’s preserving living history. Now we must focus on the surrounding forests to ensure they are resilient to fire, securing their legacy for future generations.”
Totaling 360 acres, the properties next to Armstrong woods host mature, second-growth redwoods with a small area of remnant old growth that survived historic commercial logging.
“It’s that beautiful Sonoma landscape, grasslands and redwoods,” across steep topography, said Catherine Elliott, senior manager of land protection the League.
The headwaters of Fife Creek’s east fork and Hulbert Creek also are within their boundaries.
Two properties totaling 360 acres adjacent to Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve have been acquired by Save the Redwoods League for eventual addition to the state park, the transfer and public access to the land remain some years off. Colored orange and sea green on this map, the properties, known as Armstrong Ridge, represent opportunities to buffer the old growth redwood grove in Armstrong Woods while protecting the headwaters to Fife and Hulbert creeks. (Save the Redwoods League)
It will take at least a year to determine how best to connect Armstrong Redwoods reserve with the acquisitions, Maslach said, noting that old logging haul roads may serve as trails to provide initial public use. State Parks will lease the property from Save the Redwoods League until then to begin forestry and watershed stewardship, general conservation and recreation planning, he said.
Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods manages adjoining Austin Creek State Recreation Area for state parks and oversees visitors services at Armstrong. Executive Director Justin Lindenberg noted that Armstrong reserve is 805 acres at present, so adding 360 acres through the new acquisitions “is a really significant expansion.”
Laura and Jonathan Ayers, whose 320-acre property accounts for most of the future addition, will remain on an estate carved out of the property for the foreseeable future.
The Ayers inherited the property through Laura’s father and ran a pack station for half a century, hosting daylong and overnight horseback trips through the state park lands before retiring a decade ago.
Earlier efforts over several years to conserve the land involving the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District ultimately failed last year because of property boundary questions and differences in state and county codes regarding easements.
Save the Redwoods League was able to close the deal, paying nearly $2 million for the combined parcels that eventually will be sold to state parks.
Now the property “is going to stay forever wild underneath the reserve status of the state Department of Parks,” Jonathan Ayers said.
No one in the family was interested in taking over the business, “so this is a logical conclusion, and we’re very happy about it,” he said.
Montgomery Woods
The 390-acre Dark Gulch addition to Montgomery Woods is part of what Save the Redwoods League calls its Montgomery Woods Initiative, as it seeks to protect a large area around the grove northwest of Ukiah. It continues on decades of League purchases and donations that expanded the park from the 9 acres first donated by Robert Orr in 1945 to more than 2,740 acres today.
A 390-acre property dubbed Dark Gulch is the latest acquisition by Save the Redwoods League in and around Montgomery Woods State Natural Reserve in Mendocino County.
Long used for industrial logging, it supports young, recovering forest that plugs a hole in surrounding protected lands, serving a critical function for wildlife connectivity and will eventually be transferred to California State Parks and be open for public access sometime in the future.
In addition to redesigning the trail network through the old trees, in part to spare the redwoods’ roots, the nonprofit organization has been working on signage and interpretation for the park.
In the past two years, the League has secured a conservation easement over the 3,862-acre Weger Ranch to the west of the park. It also has acquired and protected 454 acres it is holding for addition to Montgomery Woods; 80 acres already donated to the park; and now 390 acres purchased from Mendocino Redwood Co.
The new property includes a quarter-mile stretch of the South Fork Big River, part of a recovery area for coho and chinook salmon and steelhead trout, and also provides habitat for threatened northern spotted owls and foothill yellow-legged frogs.
The League paid $1.5 million for the property, raised in part through support from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
Though still recovering from commercial logging, the property hosts young redwoods, Douglas fir, tanoak, manzanita, huckleberry and California hazelnut within the forest.
“It’s young,” said Adriana Andreucci, a land protection manager for the League. “But it’s beautiful.”
You can reach staff writer Mary Callahan (she/her) at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @MaryCallahanB.