MENDOCINO CO., 5/6/26 — If you live in Mendocino County and you have a dog, you have already learned the hard way that most state-park trails are off-limits to four-legged company. Pull up to Van Damme on a Saturday morning, get out of the truck with a leash in your hand, and a ranger will politely send you packing.
Same at Russian Gulch once you push past the dog-friendly side of the park, same at Hendy Woods once you leave the campground and day-use area, same at Sinkyone. The default rule on California state-park trails is no dogs, and the rule is enforced.
The good news is that Mendocino is one of the rare counties where the exceptions are real, the workarounds are short drives apart, and the public land outside the state parks system — Bureau of Land Management ground, Army Corps lake shore, Land Trust preserves, Jackson Demonstration State Forest, and the county’s own parks — add up to more honest dog-walking than any other slice of the North Coast.
Here are the picks I send people to, north to south on the coast, then inland. All allow dogs on leash unless I note otherwise. In California state parks, that means a leash no longer than six feet. None require you to lie to a ranger about whether your dog is a service animal.
The haul-road trifecta
Three of the county’s best dog walks share one piece of history: they were all built to move logs, and they all became coastal trails after the mills shut. They are flat, wide, mostly paved or hard-packed, and they’re the right answer when you have a senior dog, a stroller, a wheelchair, or a friend who doesn’t really hike.
MacKerricher Coastal Trail runs about 4.75 miles along the bluff north of Fort Bragg, on the old logging haul road. Park at Glass Beach or Pudding Creek, point your dog north, and you can walk as far as your knees will carry you. Two warnings: dogs are not allowed at the Seal Rookery, Virgin Creek Beach, Ten Mile Beach, or in the Inglenook Fen-Ten Mile Dunes Natural Preserve. Stay on the haul road and obey the posted closures, and you’re fine.
Noyo Headlands Trail opens up about five miles of paved bluff on the 93-acre former Georgia-Pacific mill site, locked behind mill gates for more than a century until the plant closed in 2002. The trail opened in stages between 2015 and 2017: eight feet wide, accessible, two trailheads — Elm Street north and Cypress Street south — and benches built by local woodworkers. It connects MacKerricher to Pomo Bluffs Park in one of the best paved coastal walking systems in Northern California. Probably the most underrated paved walk on the North Coast.
Big River Trail climbs out the south side of the Mendocino bridge and follows the river for as much as 10 miles inland on the old logging grade. Leash, multi-use, mostly flat, river views the whole way. Watch for sneaker waves at the beach side of the parking lot — they have killed people. The Mendocino Land Trust transferred this land to State Parks in 2002, and the dog-friendly haul-road designation came with the deal.
In the village and on the bluff
Mendocino Headlands State Park is the rule-breaker that Mendo Voice readers should brag about. Most California State Parks ban dogs on dirt trails. The Headlands is one of the rare units where leashed dogs are welcome on the bluff trails that ring the village. Single-track in places with steep drops on both sides. Gorgeous in any weather. Free, day use only.
Russian Gulch Headlands Trail is three-quarters of a mile of bluff over the Devil’s Punch Bowl — a collapsed sea cave that churns at the right tide. This is the dog-friendly side of Russian Gulch: State Parks allows leashed dogs on the beach and trails west of Highway 1, but not on Fern Canyon Trail or the park’s interior trails east of Highway 1. Park at the picnic area and walk it; the headland is a short there-and-back.
Point Cabrillo Light Station has about four miles of trails through coastal prairie on more than 300 acres. The half-mile from the parking lot to the lighthouse is the easy version; loop the North Trail for two miles. Dogs are even allowed on the main floor of the lighthouse itself, which is the kind of detail that makes Point Cabrillo unusual in California.
Spring Ranch Trail is a little over a mile out and back on the north Van Damme unit, past 1857 barns and tide pools, with seal haul-outs offshore and gray whales migrating through in season. Mountain lions and coyotes have been logged here, so the leash advice is not theoretical. No cell service.
Caspar Uplands Trail runs 1.3 miles through the southernmost natural stand of Sitka spruce in North America, between mile markers 1.5 and 2.25 on Highway 1. Park at Caspar Beach and cross the road. Quiet, mostly empty, and the trees are old enough to feel it.
Pomo Bluffs Park is a paved, fenced loop on 25 acres above Noyo Bay, south of the Noyo River. Cliff edges are sheer — short leash. Day use 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Anderson Valley and the south coast
Navarro Point Preserve is a 1.2-mile loop on 56 acres of bluff with the best wildflower bloom on the south coast in April. The cliffs are very steep, the rare-plant signage is real, and the memorial bench for Coastal Commission staffer Deborah Bove is worth the side trip.
Bowling Ball Beach by way of Schooner Gulch State Beach south of Point Arena is a low-tide hike to one of California’s stranger geological features: rows of spherical sandstone concretions weathered out of the bluff and lined up in the surf like a giant’s broken bowling alley. Time it within 90 minutes of low tide. No restroom, no water, muddy after rain.
Point Arena-Stornetta Public Lands, federal coast managed by BLM as part of the California Coastal National Monument, is open to leashed dogs across roughly eight miles of marked bluff paths. Wide skies and big surf, and you’ll mostly have it to yourself on a Tuesday. This was the first mainland addition to the California Coastal National Monument.
Greenwood State Beach at Elk allows leashed dogs and gives you driftwood, rocky shore, and the postcard sea stacks south of Greenwood Creek.
Inland — when the coast is socked in
North Cow Mountain Recreation Area east of Ukiah is 26,000 acres of BLM land with about 30 miles of non-motorized trails. Glen Eden is the headliner. No off-highway vehicles here — those are on South Cow Mountain, and you don’t want to mix dogs with that. Some sections cross private inholdings, so obey the signage. Hot in July and August, cooler weather in spring and fall.
Shakota Trail at Lake Mendocino is a three-mile-each-way oak-and-grassland walk along the western shore, mostly shaded, with mountain bikes sharing the tread. Park at the Pomo Cultural Center or Overlook Day-Use Area and don’t let the dog drink lake water in algae season.
Low Gap Park in Ukiah gives you 80 acres along Orr Creek, a network of dirt trails for leashed dogs, and fenced off-leash dog parks with separate pens for big and small dogs, water stations, and waste bags.
Faulkner County Park outside Boonville is 40 acres of redwoods and tanoaks west of Anderson Valley, with the Azalea Discovery Trail, built in 1975, and a 1.1-mile Ridge Trail loop. Cooler than the valley floor in summer.
Chamberlain Creek Waterfall Trail in Jackson Demonstration State Forest, halfway between Fort Bragg and Willits on Highway 20, is a three-mile out-and-back to a 50-foot waterfall tucked in a pocket of old-growth redwood. Leash, foot traffic only on this one. Park at the pull-out by the steam donkey, walk in on Road 200.
When to leave the dog at home
Don’t take dogs on the Lost Coast Trail through Sinkyone Wilderness; State Parks bans dogs from the trails, except service animals. Don’t take them past the dog-friendly west side of Russian Gulch, into the redwood trails at Hendy Woods, onto Manchester State Park’s beach or interior trails, onto Jug Handle’s Ecological Staircase east of Highway 1, or onto Standish-Hickey, Smithe Redwoods, or Montgomery Woods. Tickets in any of these places are real, the rangers know the law, and there are too many good legal options to risk it.
The pattern is simple. State Parks are the trap. Land Trust preserves, BLM, the Army Corps lakeshore, county parks, and Jackson Demonstration State Forest are where Mendocino residents walk the dog. Try those, and you’ll never run out of new ground.
Roger Coryell is operations manager for DogTrekker, a California travel resource for people who hike, road-trip, and stay in lodgings with their dogs.