On Wednesday, June 12, the state of California officially opens Dos Rios, the first new state park in more than a decade. It’s a riparian forest restoration at the confluence of the San Joaquin and Tuolumne rivers, in the Central Valley, about an hour from San Jose—and the subject of Bay Nature’s Spring 2024 cover story, “The Everything Park ^(https://www.blogquicker.com/goto/https://baynature.org/article/after-fifteen-years-a-new-state-park-in-the-central-valley/),” by H.R. Smith.
We dubbed Dos Rios the Everything Park because a modern state park has an astonishing number of jobs to do—among them groundwater storage, wildlife habitat, and climate adaptation. People destroyed nearly all of the Central Valley’s riparian forest for agriculture or urban areas over the past century. This 1,600-acre restoration, which was led by the nonprofit River Partners, is part of an ambitious plan to restore 100,000 acres. (Seeing the landscape-scale engineering of this—how farmland has been transformed into floodplain—is fascinating, and worth a visit.)
But just as important is Dos Rios’s meaning for the people who will get to use it. “Valley residents, many Latino and low-income, have never had the same access to public lands as people who live on the coast,” Smith writes. “Native inhabitants of the valley have lost so much that the scale of it is difficult to even imagine.”
At the heart of Smith’s story is Kimberly Stevenot, a Northern Sierra Mewuk and founding member of the California Indian Basketweavers Association, who helped plan, and plant, a garden for Indigenous use at Dos Rios. That’s a sea-change from past policy.
“One of Kimberly Stevenot’s responsibilities as a kid was to hang out by the side of the road and look for park rangers—or anyone else who looked like they might be trouble,” Smith writes—since “so much as picking a berry in a state park without authorization put them in violation of California Code 4306.”
Smith’s story is a powerful, gorgeous piece about how this park that’s meant to serve people, wildlife, and planet all at once came to be. You can read it here ^(https://www.blogquicker.com/goto/https://baynature.org/article/after-fifteen-years-a-new-state-park-in-the-central-valley/). And let us know what you see at Dos Rios, if you visit this year.
If you go
Dos Rios State Park is opening in time for the third annual State Parks Week ^(https://www.blogquicker.com/goto/https://castateparksweek.org/), but it’s still very much in development, and the public has been invited to help shape its future facilities. See the Dos Rios State Park official website ^(https://www.blogquicker.com/goto/https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=31363) to learn more.
Getting there 3599 Shiloh Rd, Modesto, CA 95358 ^(https://www.blogquicker.com/goto/https://maps.app.goo.gl/dkBTaQhRbjXowgoR6)
Activities For now, you can’t go wandering around on your own and must join a guided tour. Activities this week can be found on this page ^(https://www.blogquicker.com/goto/https://castateparksweek.org/event-finder/) (filter the “park” field for Dos Rios), including a meditation, a floodplain-science tour, and, notably, a Culture and Community Day organized by Stevenot. It’s 9am–2pm on Saturday, June 15, and will feature dancing, Indigenous food, and basketweaving demos.
Entrance It’s free for now, but this may change. Reservations are required ^(https://www.blogquicker.com/goto/https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=31363).
Dogs are welcome on a six-foot leash.
Learn more Check out the park brochure (English version ^(https://www.blogquicker.com/goto/https://www.parks.ca.gov/pages/31363/files/DosRios_InfoSheet_8.5x11_060624_FINAL.pdf), Spanish version ^(https://www.blogquicker.com/goto/https://www.parks.ca.gov/pages/31363/files/DosRios_InfoSheet_Spanish_8.5x11_060624_FINAL.pdf)).
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