"We're hoping this becomes a real hub for the community." That's what Max Lawson, the manager brought in last May to launch a new farmers market on Dunbar Road, told a reporter as his opening date approached. He said it in the summer of 2025. The market didn't open that week. It didn't open that month.
That gap between the promise and the produce is worth sitting with, because it tells you something about how slowly good things move in a village this size, and it sets up the actual story of Glen Ellen's fall calendar. This season has two kinds of events on it: the ones built to sell out once, and the one built to run every week for as long as anyone can plan for. If you only have time to pay attention to one, it should not be the one getting the most buzz right now.
The party you can't get into
Jack London turned 150 this year, and Jack London State Historic Park is marking it with a gala called "Jack's 150th: A Bold Wish," set for this Saturday, September 19, among the eucalyptus grove and the Winery Ruins. Park Avenue is catering. Lasseter Family Winery is pouring. It's already sold out.
A sold-out anniversary gala is a nice marker of how much affection this park still commands, but it's a single evening. It happens once and then it's a memory and a photo album. The more useful thing the park put on the calendar this year is built for repeat visits: the third annual WILD Trail Challenge, five Saturday hikes between September 5 and October 3 that together cover all 39.5 miles of trail inside the park.
The series is already underway. Two hikes are done, three remain.
| Hike | Date | Route | Distance | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Historic Trails | Sept 5 (completed) | Beauty Ranch, London Lake, Wolf House ruins | ~4.5 miles roundtrip | Easy to moderate |
| Ancient Redwood | Sept 12 (completed) | Upper, Lower, and Fallen Bridge Trails to the Grandmother Tree | Moderate | Moderate |
| Ridge | Sept 26 | A climb along part of the Bay Area Ridge Trail | ~12 miles roundtrip | Difficult |
| Summit | Oct 3 | Climb to the summit of Sonoma Mountain | Moderate to difficult | Moderate to difficult |
Each hike runs $15, and the park's usual $15 vehicle entry fee is waived for participants. Hikers who registered for the full series before September 5 locked in all five for $60 instead of paying one at a time. That window has closed, but the two remaining Saturdays, Ridge on September 26 and Summit on October 3, are still open for individual registration. Details live on the park's own site.
None of that requires a ticket you can't get anymore. It requires a Saturday morning and a decent pair of shoes.
The market that took a year longer than planned
The bigger story this fall isn't at the park at all. It's at Woodland Star Charter School, a small public Waldorf school on the former Dunbar Elementary site at 11700 Dunbar Road, where a new farmers market is finally running every Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., year-round.
Here's why that sentence matters more than it sounds like it should. This market was supposed to open in mid-August of 2025. It had already cleared approval from the California Department of Food and Agriculture as a Certified Farmers Market, which means the produce sold there has to actually come from California growers, not get trucked in from wherever. Organizers had lined up room for 25 to 30 vendor stalls. Opening day was set.
Then, days before launch, Woodland Star's executive director Caroline Hopewell got a call. The application she'd personally mailed to Sonoma County's Department of Health Services had never arrived.
"There's no issue with the paperwork, but you have to have it approved 30 days before opening."
At the time, organizers said the delay would run about 30 more days. It ran closer to eleven months. The market didn't actually open until July 2026, nearly a full year after that first mid-August 2025 target. In a village where a Sunday market is the kind of thing people plan their whole day around, that's a long time to wait for something that had already cleared state certification.
It's open now, and it's running on a genuine year-round schedule, not a seasonal one that packs up when the weather turns. That's the detail that separates it from almost everything else on this fall's calendar. The gala doesn't come back until someone decides to throw another one. The trail challenge repeats annually but only for five Saturdays. The market, once it actually got its paperwork sorted, doesn't have an end date. It's the first new recurring fixture the village has added in years, and it happened quietly enough that you could have missed the whole saga unless you were watching Dunbar Road closely.
One caveat worth knowing before you go: the market isn't yet set up to accept CalFresh or Market Match, the state programs that stretch grocery benefits at other Sonoma County markets. Organizers have said they're still building the market up to that point. It's a small tell that this is still a young operation finding its footing, not a fully mature institution yet, even with a state certification behind it.
What else is actually worth putting on the calendar
Beyond the headline items, the rest of the fall lineup skews toward the kind of programming that rewards people who already live here and already know the trails.
- Bouverie Preserve, the 535-acre reserve on Sonoma Highway now run by All Hands Ecology, keeps its docent-led Saturday programs going through the season. A community-access hiking day runs September 19, and a nature journaling walk follows on September 26. Both require reservations. Self-guided hiking isn't permitted on the property, so this is one of the few ways in.
- The Glen Ellen Historical Society presents a talk on October 8 about the history of the old Sonoma Developmental Center, the sprawling former state institution whose grounds sit just up the road and whose future has been a live question in the valley for years.
- October 10 brings a plein air painting day inside Jack London State Historic Park, run in partnership with the Sonoma Community Center, followed that evening by a craft-focused "spooky season" event from 4 to 6:30 p.m.
- On October 25, the park hosts a bilingual, family-friendly fall colors celebration, with costumes encouraged and a focus on local wildlife.
None of it requires advance planning on the scale of a gala ticket. Most of it requires showing up with the right shoes, or in the case of Bouverie, a reservation made a week or two ahead.
The version of this fall worth remembering
A gala sells out because it's rare. A five-hike series draws a crowd because it's a challenge with a finish line. Both are good reasons to pay attention to Jack London State Historic Park this season, and neither one changes what a Sunday looks like here past October.
The market does. It's the one piece of this fall's calendar that isn't going anywhere once the leaves turn, and it's the one that took the longest, most ordinary kind of delay to get there: a lost envelope, a 30-day rule, a manager who had to wait a full extra season before doing the job he was hired to do in May. That's not a dramatic story. It's just how long it actually takes for a small village to build something that lasts, and it's worth knowing before you assume the loudest event on the calendar is the one that matters most.
If you're thinking about what it actually means to live in a place where the neighborhood calendar moves at this pace, and where a market's opening day is genuine local news, Suzanne Ashimine has spent years watching Glen Ellen and the rest of Sonoma Valley up close. Reach out for a complimentary home valuation or consultation if you're weighing a move into or out of the village this season.
