Exit to open spaces

It's one of those perfect California days, in one of those perfect California places, so stunning it might've been crafted by Hollywood to make the rest of the world jealous.

This picture-postcard spot, which very nearly became a landfill for San Francisco's garbage, is Lynch Canyon Open Space, a thousand acres of "wow!" an hour's drive west of Sacramento. It lies among the hills and valleys on the right-hand side of Interstate 80 if you're heading west, just before the road drops down into Vallejo.

Here, golden eagles rise into the blue-blue sky, leaving winged shadows on green hills below. Tiny yellow violas bloom prettily as if that's all they do, but their greater responsibility is to shelter the nesting Callippe Silverspot butterfly, an endangered species. A western ridge, where the breeze is steady and cool, offers views of Mount Tamalpais, Mare Island, San Pablo Bay, Mount Diablo and, in the distance, the topmost crown of the Golden Gate Bridge. Turn around and a wind turbine farm is awhirl near Rio Vista in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

Other than a rambling column of high-voltage transmission towers and infrequent glimpses of the interstate and Highway 12, as it passes through Jameson Canyon, the land looks much as it did a century or more ago. Even the resident cattle, which live on three pastures leased to a neighboring rancher, harken to the days when wealthy landowner Gen. Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo kept some of his livestock here.

Lynch Canyon Open Space is owned by the nonprofit Solano Land Trust and operated in partnership with Solano County, which provides its park rangers. A crew of volunteers and the rangers maintain the nine miles of trails and build picnic tables and benches at scenic spots.

The diversity is inspiring

Open just 11 months, Lynch Canyon waits to be discovered.

"Spring, and the California hills. Gee whiz," Mary Ann Montague of Dixon says on her first visit to Lynch Canyon. "I love painting these hills, but today I'm going to walk."

"We are avid birders. We'll be looking for birds and wildflowers," says Connee Davis of Woodland as the women take off on foot into the undulating hills.

Lynch Canyon is for hiking (some trails are suitable for sneakers while steeper inclines are best tackled in hiking boots), trail running, mountain-biking and horseback riding. No motorized vehicles are allowed beyond the parking lot.

Those who venture here have plenty to watch for on trails that range from easy to difficult, depending on length and grade.

Among the birds known to frequent Lynch Canyon are red-tailed hawks, goldfinches, great horned and barn owls, Western bluebirds and Northern harriers. Among the trees and shrubs are live oak, California bay laurel, buckeye, willow, blue gum, black walnut, Himalayan blackberry and poison oak. And scattered around the 1,039 acres are 20 varieties of native and non-native grasses, filaree, lupine, soap plant, yarrow, purple sanicle and monkey flower.

"This doesn't begin to list them all," says Teri Engbring, volunteer coordinator for Solano Land Trust. "The biodiversity at Lynch is one of my favorite features, an interpreter's dream."

Part of Gen. Vallejo's empire

The known history of Lynch Canyon dates to the time of the Patwin Indians, who lived in small villages and whose acorn-grinding rocks can still be found near surviving oak trees.

From the 1830s to the 1850s, Vallejo grazed thousands of head of cattle, horses and sheep on his private land, which is now Solano, Sonoma and Napa counties. He was the first man to own what is now Lynch Canyon, purchasing the Suscol Grant for $5,000 from the Mexican governor of California.

The cattle living at Lynch Canyon today not only bring in revenue for Solano Land Trust but keep the grasslands short, to lessen fire danger. A fire swept through here in 1966 and burned the entire canyon.

Over the years, many people have lived in Lynch Canyon, including would-be gold miner Peter Lynch, who emigrated from Ireland during the Gold Rush. He was so poor that he took the first job offered him, working as a farm laborer for a man named Fagan.

Lynch's descendants bought the canyon in 1916, and it remained in the family until they sold the land to Tri-County Development Inc. in 1983. The company planned to use it as a dumping ground for garbage hauled in from San Francisco.

"This beautiful valley would have been a landfill," says Engbring. "It appealed to them for that because there is a lot of clay, so there wouldn't have been as much seepage going into the water table. But it would have meant losing these incredible, gorgeous hills."

"Clay is malleable," says park ranger Chris Drake, "and you can see where the clay on the hills is so saturated with water that it gets heavy and slides down."

"They couldn't sell it for building homes because of these beautiful slumps," Engbring says, "so we have some natural advantages to avoiding development. It was the local community, people in Cordelia and Green Valley, who fought against the landfill and for preserving it as open space. This was a real community success effort."

The Cordelia Village Homeowners Association stood behind a ballot measure that, in 1984, put an end to the proposed landfill. Tri-County sold the property to the Solano County Farmlands & Open Space Foundation, which bought it piece by piece over several years, for $4.2 million.

Anniversary plans

On May 10-11, Solano Land Trust and Solano County will host a celebration of Lynch Canyon's first anniversary as a public-access open space. Guided nature hikes, bike tours, horseback rides and family activities are on the agenda.

Engbring, Drake and others involved in preserving and promoting Lynch Canyon are anxious to show it off to newcomers.

"Every time I come here," says Engbring, "I get a feeling of peace. How could you not be inspired with these views? What a great place to connect with nature."

"If you've been here one time, you love it," says Drake.

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• Call The Bee's Dixie Reid, (916) 321-1134.