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Home Get Involved Wonders & Wanders Rush Ranch |
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Rush Ranch Open Space Preserve Overview Basics
Getting There
Starting in the 1770s, Spanish soldiers and missionaries moved the native people living along the southern San Francisco Bay to the mission in San Francisco. The Patwin remained isolated from Spanish subjugation until 1817, when a Spanish soldier led an expedition into Suisun Valley that resulted in a battle and massacre of native people. In 1823, most of the remaining Patwin and other natives in the area were moved to the new mission at Sonoma. When the Mexican government secularized the missions in 1834, half of the Sonoma mission's holdings in Suisun Valley were to be given back to the Patwin people. Mexican General Vallejo gave the land to Chief Solano, a Patwin leader from Suisun Valley who had helped Vallejo battle other Indian tribes. A smallpox epidemic decimated the Patwin between 1835-37, and the area now comprising Rush Ranch was likely uninhabited until after the Gold Rush. Rush Ranch takes its name from Hiram and Sarah Rush, a Solano County pioneer family who started acquiring the land in 1864 to raise horses, cattle and sheep. Besides ranching, the Rushes also made their fortune harvesting hay and transporting it out to San Francisco Bay on flat-bottomed boats (called hay or scow schooners) that could navigate the shallow waters here.
The Marsh Trail has numbered posts on it that correspond to numbers on a trail map available at the Visitor Center. Walk on the Marsh Trail and take your time seeing all this living, breathing marsh has to offer. For much of the hike you'll be surrounded by tule plants or blackberry bushes while walking on a dirt trail that is covered with vegetation in some places. The trail brings you up to a low hill overlooking Suisun Slough. From the top of the hill you might see boats heading upstream into the delta from Suisun City. At the bottom of the hill the trail crosses a corner of the tidal marsh, and a side path highlights and identifies some of the marsh plants. The purple-flowered Suisun thistle is one native plant you might encounter; Rush Ranch may have the last stand of this endangered species. The Suisun ornate shrew also lives around here, but is rarely seen. The four-inch long predator lives on insects and crustaceans that are in abundance in the marsh during the warmer months, but it shrinks to one-third to one-half its mass during winter. The shrew is an annual animal; it dies early in its second year of life, just after breeding. Rush Ranch covers about 1.6 square miles of the roughly 10 square miles of tidal marsh remaining in the Suisun Marsh area. Most of the remainder of Suisun Marsh consists of diked wetlands owned by duck-hunting clubs that manage them to provide food and habitat for their quarry. The protection of Rush Ranch began as a dispute between environmentalists and developers. The ensuing lawsuit catalyzed the formation of Solano County Farmlands and Open Space Foundation (later called Solano Land Trust). Rush Ranch was acquired in 1988 with a grant from the State Coastal Conservancy. Suisun Marsh is the largest contiguous estuarine marsh in the United States and the largest wetland in California.
Rush Ranch has no native trees, although eucalyptuses were planted long ago as windbreaks. There are two distinct plant communities at Rush Ranch: grasslands and brackish marsh. Peat, a mass of decomposed, compacted plant matter, is created by vegetation's reactions with its soggy surroundings, partially carbonizing the plants and storing energy. Peat is abundant in the brackish marshes. Owing to a shortage of trees for firewood, the ranch's residents used to harvest this peat, drying it in the barn for use as fuel.
While Fairfield and Suisun are making great strides in promoting investment within their cities and protecting surrounding open space, a county-wide effort is needed to accommodate growth while protecting the open space that makes Solano such a wonderful place to live and visit. In the 1990s, it had the fastest population growth rate of any Bay Area county and one of California's highest. Over 99,000 acres of agricultural land and other open space in Solano County are at risk of being paved over in the next 30 years. Nearly 43,000 of these acres are at risk within the next decade.
The Marsh Trail is a loop trail that will deposit you back at the barn where you started.
Please note the following: Dogs are not allowed on the Marsh Trail, but they are allowed on the Suisun Hill Trail. Bikes are not allowed on any of the trails on Rush Ranch. This walk is very flat, making it a good hike for kids of all ages. In particular, you may be interested in the Visitor Center, blacksmith shop, farm animals and antique farm equipment. To contact the Rush Ranch Educational Council and for information about school programs, call Don Taynton at 707.425.3706. If you want to continue down Grizzly Island Road another 4 miles from Rush Ranch, you can visit a California Department of Fish and Game preserve. In season, hunting of birds and elk (from a captive tule elk herd) is allowed. Bay Area Hiker's Guide to Rush Ranch Public Transit—please note that there is a 2.5 mile walk
from transit Via Greyhound:
Via Amtrak/Capitol
Corridor:
By using this hiking guide, you agree to our terms and conditions. |
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Prior
to Spanish colonization, the native Patwin people maintained small seasonal
villages along the edge of Suisun Marsh, including one village at Rush
Ranch. The Patwin lived in harmony with the land and honored the peregrine
falcons that inhabit this area as their creator spirit. Evidence of the
Patwin presence remains at Rush Ranch in the form of a sandstone rock
with grinding holes where Patwin women processed seeds, fish and dried
meat. The Marsh Trail also has a replica of a Patwin home.
The
hike starts on the Marsh Trail, which begins just past the barn, alongside
the visitor information kiosk. The Marsh Trail brings you on a loop
around an 80-acre managed marsh. 
These
brackish tidal marshes are critical to several food chains and support
many endangered plant and animal species that require this specific habitat.
Rush Ranch is one of those rare places where fresh-water marshes adjoin
salt-water marshes, creating a haven for migratory birds-and they're everywhere
here: pintails, cormorants and millions of ducks. Bird-watchers can expect
non-stop sightings, even of raptors like the red-tail hawk and the osprey.
The marshlands here and elsewhere in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta
are a critical stop-off point along the Pacific Flyway, a major north-south
migration route for millions of migratory waterfowl and shorebirds.
Solano
is missing one tool that could help it maintain and foster agricultural
and other open-space preservation: an open space district (OSD). An OSD
would work in partnership with the Solano Land Trust, providing a stable
source of much-needed funding for agricultural conservation easements
and the purchase, management and operation of other open spaces. 