Coleman Valley Rd, Bodega Bay, CA
Coleman Valley Rd+Graton Rd provides an alternative escape out to the Pacific Coast that parallels (there's that word again) the busier, touristy route from Petaluma to Bodega Bay where all the weekend traffic bottlenecks.
Bodega Bay is a notorious bottleneck on Highway 1 if you're attempting to escape the inland heat and head for the ocean. If you're starting from Petaluma, don't. We got something way better...
Skip a few miles north to Graton.
Graton Rd leaves Highway 116 at the tiny community of Graton, then does a quick up-and-over through miles of vineyards to reach Occidental.
This tiny community is deeply rooted in logging history. When the railroad reached this valley in 1876, it changed everything. By 1877, just a year after the tracks were laid, six active sawmills were operating in the immediate Occidental area, harvesting giant old-growth redwoods to build the expanding cities of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Steam trains hauled out cordwood, tanbark, charcoal, and regional agricultural goods like apples, peaches, potatoes, and dairy to connect with Sausalito. The final train pulled out of Occidental in 1930, and the historic tracks were completely removed. The old Occidental Depot was eventually demolished around 1937.
When the tracks were ripped up, portions of the flat, graded railbed were repurposed into the asphalt roads you ride on today like Tan Oak Ave & Occidental-Camp Meeker Rd. Other traces of the railroad are the footings for railroad trestles that still remain.
Transitioning to Coleman Valley Rd at Occidental, the route climbs steeply into the redwood forest. Coleman Valley Rd gets progressively narrower until it becomes a no-center-line, single-lane goat trail that pops out onto Highway 1 just a few miles north of Bodega Bay.
Headed north or south?
Goat Rock State Beach is just up the road to the north- don't miss that. Cool place with a parking lot that creates a narrow spit of land with ocean on both sides connecting to Goat Rock.
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