In Guerneville, float on a river amongst California’s majestic redwoods

The Russian River was operating low and slowly. Just a few miles outdoors Guerneville at Steelhead Beach, a number of males stepped into the water, laden with flotation gadgets. A duck, a flamingo, a unicorn …

“Don’t you know?” requested Anna Deurloo, standing by me on the shore. “It’s Lazy Bear Week! That’s why the river is full of bears: big hairy men with beards. And Speedos.”

Deurloo, who lives in Guerneville, had made glittery bandannas for her crew of bears to put on at the annual celebration. Out on the water, Joe Souza of Long Beach adjusted his blinged-out headgear, hollering that he’d been coming to Guerneville each summer season for greater than 20 years.

“It’s a nice place to meet our friends from all over the country,” Souza mentioned, “and get tricked into this river.”

When the climate is heat, the Russian River attracts dawdlers of all types, together with LGBTQ+ vacationers, longtime locals and Bay Area households. On summer season weekends, 1000’s present up in Guerneville with kayaks, canoes, interior tubes — absolutely anything that may float, ideally with a cooler connected. Then they spend hours gliding downstream previous surroundings which may as properly be a Northern California spotlight reel: vineyards, redwood forests and ultimately a seashore scene filled with driftwood and sea stacks.

They know that point is of the essence. Many locations on the river in and round Guerneville shut down November by means of early May as a result of it will get chilly and wet and the river can run excessive and quick.

But for now by means of early October, with little rain and seasonal dams controlling the water’s move, this may be California’s laziest river.

Still, for loads of Californians, together with me, this nook of Sonoma County is little-known territory. I’ve simply gotten my first good have a look at the realm, which is about 85 miles north of San Francisco, and I’m glad I arrived once I did.

For years, as Sonoma County’s wine nation has grown ever extra expensive and stylish, the communities of the decrease Russian River have clung to their rustic, quirky and extra reasonably priced methods, partly due to the realm’s vulnerability to altering seasons.

But the riverside scene is evolving. Since the pandemic, a number of new or revamped lodgings have boosted glamping and different upscale components in a territory as soon as higher recognized for outdated cabins. At privately owned Johnson’s Beach in Guerneville, the place parking was free within the outdated days, the payment is as much as $10 a day. In the Johnson’s Beach lodgings, lengthy recognized for summer-camp vibes, some rooms now come geared up with luxurious linens and a French press. On the menu on the River Electric, there’s a “high-low dog” — a sizzling canine with black caviar — for $40. In different phrases, the decrease Russian River is edging up-market.

“There’s a lot more new blood up here. A lot of new people in the last five years,” mentioned Robert Baba, who runs Ideal Hardware in Forestville.

“Prices are going up and hotels are getting more posh,” mentioned Michael Rex, proprietor of Guerneville’s Russian River Bookstore. But nonetheless, he mentioned, “there’s a lot to do here where you don’t have to spend a dime.”

Here’s what I discovered in 4 days as a Russian River rookie.

Forestville: Stepping into the river

If you need to think about time standing nonetheless, begin at Burke’s Canoe Trips, which has been renting canoes and kayaks for many years. At Burke’s, which sits on the fringe of Forestville (inhabitants: about 3,300), most clients hire a watercraft ($95 per canoe, $60 per kayak) earlier than midday, drift 10 miles down river to Guerneville, then catch a Burke’s bus again to the place they started.

The river water is shallow, typically 3 to five toes deep. The seashores are pebbly. The redwood groves start inside stone-skipping distance of the Burke’s property and observe the river downstream. Drinking water and sunblock are very important. Sightings of blue heron, egrets and river otters are widespread. (Burke’s additionally has tenting with sizzling showers and hearth rings, at $20 per particular person per evening.)

“People know that no matter how the world is doing, when they come to the river, it’s going to be like it used to be,” mentioned Linda Burke, second-generation proprietor of the enterprise.

“It could be 1946 when you’re paddling,” mentioned Ted Schroeder, longtime supervisor at Burke’s.

But even at Burke’s, issues change: Demand is up for kayaks, down for the steel canoes, that are heavier.

Along Front Street, Forestville’s tiny business core, you can get a corn canine for $3.30 at Carr’s Drive-Inn, which appears like a time capsule from 1979. Or you can get some wood-fired pizza on the large, brilliant patio of Sonoma Pizza Co., which opened in 2022; or possibly a cup of natural ice cream at Angela’s (since 2023).

If you need to go luxe, you possibly can eat or sleep on the Farmhouse Inn, a 6-acre property on River Road that features 18 rooms and cottages, a pool and a few spa providers amid lushly landscaped grounds. Its restaurant occupies an 1873 farmhouse. (Nightly charges begin round $440.)

For lots of people, nevertheless, Forestville is only a place to slide into the lazy river — typically at Steelhead Beach, half a mile downriver from Burke’s.

As glampers arrive, Guerneville will get fancier

Guerneville (inhabitants: about 4,500) is the hub of human exercise on the Lower Russian River. River Road turns into Main Street there, and in summer season its outlets and eating places buzz with folks. Riverfront recreation at Johnson’s Beach is a block away. A community of redwood forest trails awaits 2 miles up the highway in Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Preserve.

Be warned, nevertheless, that on weekends, Guerneville is usually brief on parking. Consider parking for the day ($10) within the large dust lot at Johnson’s Beach, which has meals, drinks, rental kayaks, canoes and interior tubes, campsites, historic bungalows, trendy tiny cabins, canvas cabanas and a four-bedroom lodge. There are about 35 models in all, open mid-April by means of October. (The naked campsites begin at $55, historic bungalows at $165.)

“It’s a lazy river and walkable to town, so we can camp and eat at restaurants,” mentioned Kim Loda of Oakland as her son, Axel, 10, confirmed off his juggling expertise close to the Johnson’s Beach snack bar. “I don’t know why my family didn’t bring me here growing up.”

Guerneville grew up as a nineteenth century logging settlement, prospered as a weekend getaway for San Franciscans arriving by ferry and practice within the Nineteen Twenties, slumped within the ‘30s and suffered extensive flooding in the 1960s. It entered a new chapter in the late 1970s, when a handful of gay entrepreneurs began buying up and revamping rustic resorts and bars.

First, in 1978, was a riverside getaway called Fife’s. Another early gay-owned enterprise was the Rainbow Cattle Company bar, nonetheless in enterprise on River Road, a.okay.a. Main Street. (Every week on Give Back Tuesday, the bar phases raffles, gives $5 dinners and earmarks 10% of income for charities.)

When the Eighties and Nineteen Nineties arrived, Guerneville suffered deeply — from the AIDS epidemic and from repeated floods.

Yet a technology later, the group has gained floor.

Since 2008, entrepreneur Crista Luedtke has constructed a collection of companies, together with Boon Eat+Drink and Boon Hotel+Spa. The Guerneville Social Club, “Russian River’s First Queer-Owned Social Club,” is because of open with a restaurant, bar and store in 2027. Lazy Bear gatherings have been staged each July since 1996 by the nonprofit Lazy Bear Fund to lift cash towards LGBTQ+ group well being. There’s additionally a Russian River Pride parade Sept. 19.

Timing my go to to keep away from weekend crowds, I ate a dinner of hen in tasty mole negro at Three Cultures Kitchen, which opened final yr. I acquired ice cream at Nimble & Finn’s, lunch at Coffee Bazaar and a $15 sandwich to go on the Korbel Winery, which gives a deli, tasting room, wine store and free excursions at its scenic web site about 3 miles west of Guerneville. I additionally browsed at Russian River Books & Letters.

“I ended up here because of the pandemic. It just went on and on, so I decided to open the bookstore,” mentioned bookshop proprietor Michael Rex. Since that point, Rex mentioned, he’s seen a rising variety of distant staff.

Most notable among the many new and renovated Guerneville resorts: Dawn Ranch and the River Electric, each with a glamping focus, each with docks on the river.

Dawn Ranch, dramatically upgraded in 2023, is a 22-acre, all-ages property that after held the Fife’s resort. The verdant grounds characteristic 86 cabins, cottages, chalets and glamping tents (open summer season by means of October) that share loos and showers. There’s an upstairs restaurant, spa providers, a pool and boathouse bar, together with a dock and personal seashore on the finish of the brief path that looks like a secret path.

The tents, which begin at about $300 nightly, have furnishings, electrical energy and Wi-Fi, however should you present up on a 93-degree afternoon, as I did, your un-air-conditioned tent can be about the identical temperature. That’s when it’s time to leap within the pool or river.

The River Electric is sited on long-idle, flood-prone 12-acre expanse of riverside land that old-timers bear in mind as the positioning of J’s Amusement Park within the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s. In 2025, the current owners unveiled a newfangled resort with a restaurant, two pools (one of them round) and 46 furnished, electrified tent units, which start at about $260 nightly.

The resort stays open until Oct. 31. Then, by design, most of the resort will be carted away or submerged when the river rises.

“Everything except the concrete, we take off-site, Which is wild,” said River Electric’s Jessica Baker, who gave me a tour. The resort additionally sells day passes for $38 and hosts many weddings and particular occasions.

Yet one other glamping possibility is Guerneville’s Autocamp Sonoma, which opened in 2016. It doesn’t have river frontage, but it surely consists of 25 Airstream trailers and 10 glamping tents within the shadow of a redwood grove.

This is how the river ends: with roaring wind on an empty seashore

Heading west from Guerneville, you roll by means of Monte Rio, seeing extra redwoods, cabins and glimpses of river.

You may spot the 11-room Inn on the Russian River, a lately upgraded property whose riverside perch features a personal dock and summer season charges of roughly $260 to $430 nightly.

What you’ll must think about is the Bohemian Grove, which hides within the close by forest, serving as a haven for the wealthy, highly effective, well-known and all-male members of the Bohemian Club because the nineteenth century.

Gathering each July at that 2,700-acre compound, membership members, who’ve included Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon and Bob Weir, are mentioned to stage a ritual “cremation of care,” burning an effigy of “care” in entrance of a 40-foot owl statue. (Suddenly, Burning Man appears rather less unique.)

Anyway, an informal tuber or kayaker can’t float all the best way to the Pacific from Forestville. (Obstacles embrace seasonal dams at Johnson’s Beach and Vacation Beach.) But should you drive the river highway previous Monte Rio and the historic however touristy outlets at Duncans Mills, you attain the coastal hamlet of Jenner. That’s the place the water flows into the Pacific, the place the Russian River goes from gentle (in summer season) to wild.

To see the converging waters and really feel the roaring wind, you possibly can drive to Goat Rock Road and Goat Rock Beach. Or you can cease for a snack at Cafe Aquatica, whose patio fronts the water’s edge.

Or you can do each, adopted by an evening at River’s End, the place a restaurant and 5 woodsy visitor rooms take pleasure in sweeping views of the river, sea and sea stacks.

I did that. And on my final morning alongside the river, I acquired up early and met Keith Chandler of Jenner-based Watertreks Ecotours at water’s edge. Then we paddled across the estuary on a pre-breakfast kayak tour.

“I never get tired of this,” Chandler instructed me.

Some excursions exit by evening, specializing in bioluminescent plankton. We skirted Penny Island, the place native Pomo folks lived and farmed for generations earlier than immigrants from Europe arrived. In truth, Chandler’s boss, Suki Waters, is a component Pomo. Jenner may be small, however river, sea, natives and newcomers all converge there.

For a great chunk of this morning, nevertheless, there was simply two of us in a kayak, sidling as much as egrets, cormorants and harbor seals, watching pelicans glide in formation over the lengthy, empty seashore the place the Russian River ends.