My recent hikes at Sanborn Skyline County Park, which has a nice walk-in campground about three miles from Skyline Boulevard, made me wonder if there might be a lot more overnighting possibilities that people might’ve overlooked.
Tom Taber’s “Santa Cruz Mountains Trail Book” says backpacking is available at Big Basin, Butano, Forest of Nisene Marks and Portola state parks, plus Monte Bello Open Space Preserve and Pescadero Creek County Park.
I realize it wouldn’t be anything like the “pick a site and park yourself” camping folks enjoy in the Sierra — it’d be more like the hut-to-hut hiking popular in Europe, minus the huts. My “Foghorn Outdoors California Hiking” book shows clusters of hikes around Highway 92 to the north and around Saratoga Gap on the south, but not much in the middle, which makes me think a “thru-hike” of the crest would probably be impractical without many road miles, and Skyline Boulevard is not a road you want to spend much time hiking on.
At first glance it appears that a sea-to-ridge-to-sea route could be plotted from Butano Sate Park near the coast, north through Portola Redwoods, over to Long Ridge Open Space Preserve, south to Saratoga Gap and returning to the coast via the Skyline to the Sea Trail to Waddell Beach. You’d have to have somebody drop you off and pick you up as it’s not a true loop.
There’s also that intriguing backpacking camp at Monte Bello — seems like there ought to be some way to build a loop starting and ending there.
Any thoughts, folks?
I have never, ever in the history of my life been backpacking and I keep thinking that this is something I should try at least once before I get to old to do it. It seems like the Santa Cruz Mountains would be a great place to give it a try, even if it were something as simple as the Sunset camp in Big basin.
Our Sierra Club class offers about the most gentle and most thorough introduction to backpacking of any way I can imagine getting started. It’s offered every spring by our Sierra Club chapter based in Palo Alto: Basic Backpacking Course
If you’ve got the fitness to do the hikes you’ve documented on your web site, then I can’t think of a reason you wouldn’t be able to enjoy backpacking.