Looking for a place for a summer hike? Check out Olompali State Historic Park near Highway 101 in Marin County, just north of the former Birkenstock warehouse and three miles from the city of Novato.
The park’s entrance has a great view of San Pablo Bay, as well as of traffic on the adjacent highway, which is in the final stages of being widened.
It’s an otherwise bucolic setting, with what docent John Chiosso refers to “layers of history.” The history stretches back thousands of years as a home to indigenous people, to more modern times, when the Grateful Dead band lived there in the 1960s.
“Every period of California history is represented,” says Chiosso.
The park’s 700 acres contain miles of hiking trails through hills studded with manzanita and oak trees. Most visitors hike to the re-created native American Miwok village, which contains tepees made of wood, called kotchas.
Chiosso says an estimated 500 to 700 Miwok people once lived there.
A sign at the site reads: “Because of the abundance of resources in this area, and the fact that it was so centrally located, the Coast Miwok village here was thought to be the largest of all sites in the Marin County area.”
The Miwok village is also home to an “ethno-botanical” garden, which features plants the Miwok harvested, including thimbleberries, Douglas iris and soaproot. Signs in front of each sign explain their significance. Soaproot, for example, was used as a body wash, and to treat stomach aches.
To truly understand the history of Olompali, it’s best to visit on Fridays and Saturdays, when a two-room museum inside a Victorian frame house is open from noon to 3 p.m. Otherwise, it’s hard to make sense of the park’s past.
Signs encased in laminated plastic in front of many of Olompali’s old buildings have been warped by the weather and are difficult or impossible to read. (Also, bringing water is recommended, as our group couldn’t find it during a recent visit.)
However, the indoor museum has a timeline and exhibits that put the Olompali story in context. Olompali is a Coast Miwok word that means either “south village,” “south people” or “south well.”
The museum traces the history from Miwok times through the Mission period in California, to Spanish and Mexican land grants, and ownership of the land by the Burdell family in the 19th and 20th centuries. Awaiting restoration, many buildings on the site are more than a century old.
Fast forward to the 1960s and the Olompali story takes twists and turns. The property was a commune for several years in the late 1960s for a group called the Chosen Family. Commune members baked bread in coffee cans, and the loaves were taken to San Francisco and given to people gathered at Golden Gate Park during 1967’s Summer of Love.
The Grateful Dead lived on the property for a few months in 1966. A picture of the band at Olompali is on the back cover of the 1969 album “Auxomoxoa.” On display at the museum, the album image shows band members sitting in front of an oak tree surrounded by children who lived at the commune. Chiosso says that tree is gone.
The commune era is covered in a 2018 documentary, “Olompali: A Hippie Odyssey,” narrated by actor Peter Coyote.
The state bought land for the park in the late 1970s. Today, the park is supported by the nonprofit Friends of Olompali, which offers hiking tours at 10:30 a.m. July 19, Aug. 16 and Sept. 14. Find details at olompali.org.
Olompali State Historic Park, at 8901 Redwood Blvd., Novato, is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. Parking is $8. Visit https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=465.
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