The Fitch Mountain Loop Isn't the One You Remember

Walk up from the Lower Villa Chanticleer parking lot on any weekday morning and the mountain still looks like the mountain. Same oak and madrone canopy, same 810 feet of climb over roughly 3.3 miles, same view of the Russian River curling below the ridge. What's changed is everything underfoot and most of what you'd touch along the way, and if you haven't hiked past the Villa Dog Park gate since 2024, you've been walking a version of Fitch Mountain that no longer exists.

That's not a small claim for a trail most residents treat as background noise, the loop you take before work or the place you let the dog off leash on a Saturday. But Fitch Mountain Park and Open Space Preserve, all 173 acres of it up to the 991-foot summit, went through a rebuild that touched the trail surface, the parking area, the dog park, and the top of the mountain itself. Most of that work wrapped two years ago. Plenty of people who use this trail every week still haven't noticed half of it.

What Changed on the Mountain

The access improvements weren't cosmetic. The city rebuilt the trail from the Lower Villa parking lot to the fire access road with ADA compliance in mind, which means the sustained grade that used to stop wheelchairs and strollers cold now has a real path. The project also added a new footbridge over the seasonal creek that cuts across the lower trail, a fix aimed at a crossing that used to turn to mud every winter.

Then there's the summit. If you've made it to the top recently, you've probably sat on the art without clocking it as art. Five sculptures in green powder-coated tubular steel, collectively titled "Summit Variations," now sit at the peak, designed by architect and longtime Healdsburg resident Johanna Grawunder with fabricator Paco Prieto. Most of the pieces double as benches. Grawunder described her approach to the project as trying "to understand what the mountain wants and what it can sustain," which is a specific way of saying the art isn't fenced off behind a placard. You catch your breath on it.

The whole package, trail work, the creek bridge, the summit installation, and the dog park rebuild below, ran to $2,887,099, funded through a mix of a Coastal Conservancy grant, a California State Parks Prop 68 per capita grant, city park impact fees, and Sonoma County's Measure M parks funding. That's four separate funding sources lining up behind one hillside, which tells you the city and county both treated this as more than a trail refresh.

The whole project was formally marked complete at a public celebration on Saturday, May 4, 2024, with State Senate President pro Tempore Mike McGuire and Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore both on hand. McGuire, who grew up in Healdsburg, called the mountain the town's "crown jewel" at the ceremony. Parking that day was so tight that attendees had to shuttle in from the high school lot on Prince Avenue, a detail worth remembering if the mountain ever draws a crowd like that again this fall.

The Dog Park Nobody Volunteer-Built This Time

The Villa Dog Park has a longer memory than most people give it credit for. Community volunteers and the city built the original off-leash area together back in 2003 at 908 Chanticleer Way, and it ran largely on that same volunteer infrastructure for two decades before erosion and age caught up with it. The renovation that closed the park starting January 29, 2024, and reopened it that May addressed a specific structural problem: runoff from the parking lot above had been cutting into a slope near the water tank that serves part of the city's supply. City project manager Tom Campbell described it as a slope repair driven by runoff that "comes down" from the lot, not a cosmetic erosion patch.

What's there now is a different animal from the volunteer build. ADA-compliant walkways connect the dog park to the adjacent playground and the Fitch Mountain trail system, so the three spaces function as one connected loop instead of three separate stops. There's a new commercial-grade shade structure, new benches and picnic tables, and a relocated water station for both dogs and their people. While the dog park was closed, the city ran a temporary dog park at Badger Park on the other side of the mountain, which is worth knowing if you're new to the neighborhood and wondering why Badger Park shows up in older posts about dog-friendly Healdsburg. That arrangement is gone now. The dogs are back at Chanticleer Way.

A Race Older Than Most Houses on the Mountain

Here's the part of Fitch Mountain's story that tends to surprise even longtime residents. The Fitch Mountain Footrace has been run since 1975, which makes the 10K course older than most of the homes ringing the base of the mountain today. For years, the race operated as a fundraiser for the Healdsburg Kiwanis Memorial Scholarship Fund, sending more than $10,000 annually to local high school seniors headed toward college or vocational training.

That fund is still connected to the race, but the 2026 running has grown its beneficiary list. This year's event, scheduled for Saturday, September 19, 2026, raises money for Corazón Healdsburg alongside a local kids running team, with Healdsburg Running Club members Miguel and Marisela Peña serving as co-race directors and HRC's Skip Brand rounding out the organizing team. St. John Catholic School, the Kiwanis Club of Healdsburg, and Empire Runners are all listed as partners this year, a lineup built specifically, in the organizers' words, so "just as many kids run as adults."

The course itself hasn't wandered far from its roots. Both the 10K and the 3K start and finish near the Historic Downtown Plaza. The 10K climbs through residential streets before circling out around Fitch Mountain along the Russian River and returning downtown, while the 3K stays flat and in-town, built for families, walkers, and dogs on leash. Race-day sponsors this year include Costeaux French Bakery, State Farm, Old Caz, and Fitch Mountain Dental, a roster that reads like a cross-section of Healdsburg Avenue rather than an outside event brought in for the weekend.

What It Means for Your September

If you live anywhere near the Villa Chanticleer entrance, North Fitch Mountain Road, or the downtown Plaza, the third Saturday in September is worth marking regardless of whether you plan to run. Race mornings on this course have historically meant early street closures downtown and reduced parking near the Plaza start line, with runners moving through residential streets before the 10K loop peels off toward the mountain. If the 2024 reopening celebration is any guide, when the city expects a crowd around Villa Chanticleer, they plan shuttle service from the high school lot rather than count on street parking holding up.

The rest of the year, the mountain now rewards a slower look. The creek bridge, the ADA trail sections, and the summit benches are permanent, which means the version of Fitch Mountain worth walking in October or January is the same one worth walking in September. The dog park connects to the trail and the playground now in a way it never did before 2024, so a Saturday morning loop that used to require three separate stops can run as one.

None of this changes what the mountain has always been to Healdsburg, which is the closest thing the town has to a shared backyard. It just means the backyard got a real upgrade, and most of the people who use it every week are still walking past the parts that changed.

If you're thinking about what it actually means to put down roots near a landmark like this one, that's a conversation worth having with someone who knows the ground. Ceci Cook works Healdsburg, Sonoma, and Napa full time, and can walk you through what a home near Fitch Mountain, or anywhere else in town, actually looks like up close. Let's Connect.