Find trailheads at Taylor Road or Reed Ranch Road off of Paradise Road in Tiburon.
wife of dentist Galen Burdell—met her sudden departure while receiving anesthesia during a gallstones procedure. The curse seemed to have let up for a few years until the 1960s. By this time the property had exchanged hands several times and was then occupied by a hippie commune dubbing itself the Chosen Family. The “Family” was associated with such local rock bands as the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service, among others, who performed at various parties at Olompali in the mid-‘60s. “Novato was completely comfortable, wide open, high as you wanted to get, run around naked if you wanted to…Everything was just super-groovy,” Jerry Garcia later said of their Olompali parties. (The back cover of the Dead’s Aoxomoxoa album features a photo of the band and various family members relaxing on a hill at Olompali.) Tragically, in 1969 two little girls, riding their trikes unattended, fell into the Olompali pool and drowned. Following an investigation into child welfare concerns, local authorities kicked the Chosen Family off the land. In 1977 a fire swept away the Burdell Mansion and destroyed several other structures, cleansing the property of its troubled history and putting to bed the final smoldering embers of the curse. The state took ownership of the property in the 1980s and established the grounds as a state park. To get there, take the Atherton exit in Novato and following the signs to 8901 Redwood Blvd. Learn more at parks.ca.gov g
Olompali—cursed, or ‘super groovy’? It’s a stretch to call an officially designated state park a hidden gem, but compared to Jack London State Historic Park or Samuel P. Taylor, the forgotten sibling Olompali State Park is woefully underutilized. In addition to several hiking trails with splendid views of the San Pablo Bay and some recreated native dwellings reflective of the Coastal Miwok who settled the area up until the 1850s, Olompali has one of the crazier histories of state parks anywhere. In the early 1800s, the Mexican government granted the 8,877- acre Rancho Olompali (including much of modern day Novato and Mount Burdell) to Camilo Ynitia, the last chief of the Coast Miwok people; he later sold the property to landowner and cattle rancher James Black, circa 1850. As the story goes, Ynitia buried saddlebags of gold from the sale somewhere in the surrounding hills—and when a local witch got wind of the hidden loot, she demanded Ynitia reveal its location. When he refused, she cursed the land where the treasure was hidden, and anyone who lived upon it. And this is when the bodies started dropping. Legend has it that Ynitia was brutally murdered in 1856 by thieves looking to steal the gold. (His body is said to have been buried in an unmarked grave somewhere on Olompali.) Meanwhile, James Black’s wife, Maria, died unexpectedly while in the chair of her son-in-law dentist Galen Burdell. Black met his untimely demise next: The landowner succumbed to “convulsions so terrible” after cracking his skull in a fall from his horse in 1870, allegedly while riding across the estate in a drunken stupor. Then Black’s only daughter, Mary Burdell—
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42 NorthBaybiz
July 2025
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