On January 18, 2026, trail counters at the Shorttail Gulch gate recorded 1,177 visitors to the Estero Americano Coast Preserve. On the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, the busiest day of the late summer, the same gate recorded 248.

Both numbers come from a count table that The Wildlands Conservancy collected and the Bodega Harbour Homeowners Association posted. Read side by side, they show what has happened at the end of Osprey Drive this year. The preserve did not stay at January's level, and it did not drop back to its quiet first weeks either. It found a middle range. That middle range is the useful backdrop for the access road and parking study BHHA posted on October 14.

Three Baselines in One Count Table

The 547-acre preserve, formerly the Bottarini Ranch, was acquired by The Wildlands Conservancy in 2015. It has about five miles of trails across coastal prairie and bluffs, down to a remote beach, according to the Press Democrat. After four months of phased access three days a week, it fully opened in November 2025, the Press Democrat later reported.

The count table, covering September 2025 through early September 2026, falls into three phases.

• Before the publicity. In November 2025 no day topped 148 visitors. The busiest days before January were December 27 and 28, at 170 and 181.
• The surge. A San Francisco Chronicle story on January 10 announcing the opening was followed by coverage in SFGate, Travel + Leisure and Smithsonian magazine, the Press Democrat reported. January's daily counts add up to roughly 9,000.
• The settled pattern. June's daily counts add up to about 2,470 and August's to about 3,110.

The table carries a footnote saying its numbers were "corrected" using ChatGPT analysis of trends. Individual days are approximations, not raw counter readings.

The clearest pattern is on holiday weekends, which is where the pressure on Osprey Drive builds:

Summer's biggest days drew about a fifth of the January peak. They still ran higher than December's holiday weekend, before the preserve had any press at all. The count document links the January spike to the MLK holiday weekend, unusually good weather, and the social media attention that followed the Chronicle story by about a week.

Why January Set the Terms

January mattered more than its numbers because of the street layout. The preserve has no parking lot, and the only way in is the Shorttail Gulch trailhead at the end of Osprey Drive. On January 24, between 1 and 2:30 p.m., cars lined nearly the full half mile of Osprey Drive, the Press Democrat reported. The street is 21 to 26 feet wide. With cars parked on both sides, a resident told the paper, traffic can jam and emergency vehicles risk being blocked.

Supervisor Lynda Hopkins, whose district includes Bodega Bay, summed up the timing in the same story: "there wasn't a problem until (the preserve) suddenly got popular."

March Moved the Cars to One Side

The county's first response was paint and signs, not a new road. On March 10, 2026, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors approved a parking management plan for parts of Mockingbird Road, Osprey Drive and Oyster Catcher Loop. The plan bans parking on one side of certain segments to keep room for fire engines and ambulances. BHHA told homeowners that 29 signs would go up by March 26, that the restrictions take effect once the signs are posted, and that the California Highway Patrol handles enforcement. The San Francisco Chronicle confirmed in April that dozens of no-parking posts had been installed. It added that, according to The Wildlands Conservancy, the early swell had "subsided into a more manageable drumbeat of visitors."

When the red curbs were first proposed, several neighbors said the change would simply push parking onto nearby streets, the Press Democrat reported. That concern helps explain why the next round of work looked beyond curb paint.

What Osprey Drive Looked Like Over Labor Day

BHHA commissioned a traffic and pedestrian study for the end of summer. From August 29 through September 15, Osprey Drive logged between 210 and 526 vehicle movements on each full count day. The highest totals came on the Saturday and Sunday of Labor Day weekend, the same days the preserve's gate counter hit its late-summer high. Average speeds stayed around 18 mph.

On the four days when both counters ran, car traffic and foot traffic through Shorttail Gulch rose and fell together, with a reported correlation of 0.86. The study notes that its counters cannot tell which trips were preserve visitors. It also did not measure parking occupancy, parking violations or emergency access. The study puts numbers on how busy the street gets on a holiday weekend, without settling what share of that traffic is headed for the preserve. Whether the streets can absorb it is left to the next document.

Five Lines Drawn Toward Estero Ranch Road

That next document is a planning-level feasibility study dated September 30, 2026, prepared by Adobe Associates of Santa Rosa for BHHA. It looks at a 20-foot-wide road and a parking area that would run from Bodega Harbour across The Wildlands Conservancy parcel, APN 100-160-002, to the unpaved Estero Ranch Road. The ground climbs from about 250 feet at the edge of the community to about 400 feet near Estero Ranch Road.

The five options:

1. Mockingbird Drive to Lot 1. The shortest road at 300 feet, with 26,000 square feet of parking, near a wetland setback.
2. Mockingbird Drive to Lot 2. 550 feet, partly along an existing golf course road, with 23,000 square feet of parking.
3. Mockingbird Drive to Lot 3. 1,150 feet, near a wetland setback, with 20,000 square feet of parking.
4. Osprey Drive to Lot 3. 950 feet and the steepest option at a 16 percent maximum grade. The access point is in front of an existing residence.
5. Mockingbird Drive to Lot 4. 2,850 feet, crossing the riparian corridor and two eroding ephemeral drainages, with about 36,650 cubic yards of cut.

Four of the five options start on Mockingbird Drive, not Osprey. The preliminary review found Options 1 through 4 physically achievable, while Option 5 faces significant grading and environmental constraints. The study leaves out boundary survey, geotechnical work, biological and wetland studies, cultural resource review, drainage design, environmental review and agency permitting. Any of these may be needed before an option can move forward. No option has been selected, approved or permitted, and the posted materials list no decision date.

The Questions a Map Doesn't Answer

Several open questions sit behind those five lines. In a February letter to homeowners, BHHA described parking rules on public roads as a county responsibility, with possible Coastal Commission oversight. It also stated the association's position that the existing easement does not permit inland access. The Coastal Commission approved the easement proposal in November 2024, after the Board of Supervisors consolidated the permit without public discussion, the Press Democrat reported.

Two other ideas raised this year remain open as well. Hopkins doubted a reservation system would work, asking in that report, "Are you going to have a guard turning someone away?" She also said that nearby Estero Lane, a narrow and partly private road, was not a feasible way in. In April, the Chronicle reported that she had floated a shuttle on the coastal highways around Bodega Bay, modeled on the county's Russian River shuttle. The Sonoma Coast Municipal Advisory Council's June 17 packet says Estero access and parking will stay on future agendas. The full study set, exhibits and earlier letters are posted on BHHA's Estero Access Updates page.

The Next Holiday Weekends

On the count table, holiday weekends are where Osprey Drive gets its heaviest preserve traffic. Thanksgiving weekend is the next one, and January 2027 brings the anniversary of the MLK weekend that set the record.

For residents hosting guests who want to walk the preserve:

• The Wildlands Conservancy lists the preserve as open daily from sunrise to sunset, free of charge, with dogs allowed on leash.
• The only entrance is a pedestrian gate off Sonoma County Regional Parks' Shorttail Gulch Coastal Access Trail, listed at 20345 Osprey Drive.
• One-side no-parking posts went up this spring along parts of Mockingbird Road, Osprey Drive and Oyster Catcher Loop, and the CHP enforces the restrictions.

At the clubhouse, Bluewater Lounge has a Thanksgiving buffet on November 26 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., with traditional favorites, salads, seasonal sides and desserts. The order page lists more than one price, so confirm with the lounge before booking.

This post covers community planning documents and posted parking rules as general information. It is not legal advice, and questions about easements or HOA rights belong with the appropriate professional.

The Estero access question will keep coming up in Bodega Harbour as the studies move along. Steve Hecht and John Chute follow these developments closely and can talk through what the posted documents mean for a particular street. Contact Your Sonoma Coast Experts.