Big Basin is one of my favorite places on earth. If you have never been there - park down at the beach where the kite surfers like to hang out and walk up that way. It is a very long hike with some exposed areas at the beginning but totally worth the effort. You will feel like you are in Jurassic Park.
You can't walk through berry creek falls anymore, it's all closed.
And I went to big basin when it was reopened, and it was a little tragic. So many enormous, but black trunks.
You can see a lot of the green growth starting around the trunks (shown in the article pictures), but it might not look lush and green again in your lifetime.
That said, there is a lot of explosive growth of flowers in the santa cruz mountains (watch out for the white poison oak flowers)
For a few months at the turn of the century I lived in nearby Bonny Doon and was training for a long distance hike. 3x/week I'd drive to Big Basin HQ at dawn and run a loop trail through the park. Those are some of the most blissful memories I have. I'd been working in a Santa Clara cubical farm for years leading up to that. The trail head is maybe an hour away? What an amazing contrast between the corporate jungle and primeval forest. Not all "forest baths" are equal, this one was quite extraordinary. I hope it can recover in our life spans.
Unfortunately the CZU Fire did a number on the densest parts of the Skyline to Sea Trail. It is still beautiful but won't look like Jurassic Park in our lifetime.
You're talking about the "Skyline to Sea" trail. (Or the way you're talking about it, it's more like "Sea to Skyline" trail.) That is a beautiful hike, but people should be warned, it's a 10 mile uphill trek. If you're healthy, it is a beautiful hike. I'm old, so it takes me most of the day to make that trek.
This makes me sad because I moved to the Bay Area in 2021 and to me Big Basin is just a large burnt out piece of land. I spend a lot of time down there surfing and I don’t think the park has even reopened.
I haven't been since the fire sadly, but even the drive through the park and down to Santa Cruz was magnificent too - amazing redwood lined curving backroad.
Big Basin is by far one of my favorite state parks in the entire country.
I spent what seemed like a "brief" gap year from college working for a startup in the Bay Area and spent all of my weekends hiking / camping. In 2016/2017 there was a huge rain season that caused washouts but I was dumb enough to drive all the way over the foothills to Big Basin. It was probably unwise but I'd never seen a forest explode with life like that before. Everything from the moss, to grasses and ferns all almost glowed with color. Mushrooms erupted from the ground almost anywhere you looked. And new waterways had recently cut through the forest. It was an incredible sight to witness first-hand.
I was into hiking before, but my time in Big Basin was a low-key religious experience. It was the first time I truly looked at a beautiful forest and thought to myself "why on earth would you cut all of this down to build ugly tract homes?"
I'm sad to hear about the CZU fires in 2020, however I'm of the opinion that fires happen and no ecosystem is intended to exist as we experience it forever. As I've gotten older, I've found memories I can no longer physically revisit in the same condition are some of my strongest and most cherished. That said, I hope conservationist can help support the forest as it heals.
I think this page plays down the importance of fire to a healthy redwood ecosystem. The trees seem to depend on a fire running through every so often and burning out the scrub under the canopy.
Of course, this isn't how old-world forests work so when European-Americans started building cabins en masse up in SLV in the 1920's, they put them right next to large trees and we did everything we could to limit fire. While there are a limited number of structures in the park itself, almost 1500 structures were destroyed during the CZU fire in the adjacent communities. My old house was 10 miles away from the park and was across Big Basin Way and Boulder Creek from neighborhoods that were decimated. (TEN MILES from the park and they were still decimated.)
We can't have the same type of design, with houses right next to trees. Once you have people living up there, the likelihood you can convince people to do a "controlled" burn gets pretty low. Then the fuel builds up for another 100 years and it destroys EVERYTHING in its path.
And what do you do for families whose homes were destroyed? Of the nearly 1500 structures destroyed, only a handful of building permits have been issued to rebuild.
This is a great article about how the forest survives fire, but the policy and politics behind how we got to the CZU fire are complex and sometimes pretty subtle.
This is more of a known fact [1]. But, it goes further than that! In California, there are several pyrophytes [2] that can't germinate without fire. [3]
>And what do you do for families whose homes were destroyed? Of the nearly 1500 structures destroyed, only a handful of building permits have been issued to rebuild.
You can't let them rebuild in place. Your points are spot on (a new survey shows 1/3 of Californians live in the urban/wildland interface where wildfires will destroy most dwellings) and it requires new zoning, new fire legislation on fire insurance, and of course the ability of people to live in higher density through infill and careful planning. The cost of housing in the Bay Area is a closely related problem, but the bottom line is that we have to let fire move through the coastal redwoods every few decades, and that means we cannot build tinderbox houses right next to those groves.
I wonder about the area ecosystem - I think it got unbalanced after the 1906 earthquake in san francisco that caused them to (tragically) log all the redwoods.
What has grown back is groups of ~ 7 redwoods clustered around the former trunk of a felled old-growth redwood. They are more numerous and denser. I suspect with several trees competing, there will never be the thousand-year-old ecosystem again in the area.
There are controlled burns around UCSC and towards Big Basin every year. Also, not all of the 1500 structures that burned were housing that needed rebuilt (think old sheds, etc)... and there are few to no houses in Big Basin anyway. Those owners that arent rebuilding from CZU fire have many reasons not to but rarely is it because they arent allowed a permit.
> A full regenerative process and outcome, along with reformed canopies, will likely take 200 years according to the Sempervirens Fund, an organization that helped create the park and is exclusively dedicated to protecting to redwood forests of the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Ecological and geological time is always a reminder of how brief the human lifespan truly is. 200 years is the blink of an eye for an ecosystem, but lifetimes for us. It's inspiring to see people work on restorations that they will never be able to appreciate in their own lives.
The ~4 feet of rain we had this season is helping quite a bit ... I cant dig a hole in my back yard without hitting wet still. I even doubt there are any of the smouldering roots left. Redwoods are tough as long as we arent cutting them down.
I like how this insinuates that you are digging holes in your backyard with regularity to even notice this. Otherwise, it is an odd way of saying it's wet =)
Redwoods are touch even when you do cut them down. The trunks will put up water shoots immediately, and you'll have another small tree in a couple of years. The problem is all the other species that live in an old growth forest can't survive in a brand new forest.
I love riding my motorcycle through the mountains of Santa Cruz through Big Basin. The way the Redwoods surround you is just incredible, and the fresh air is just as regenerative as the trees themselves
[+] [-] whalesalad|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acchow|2 years ago|reply
Park at Fern Canyon and walk through Fern Canyon to Fern Canyon Trail, James Irvine Trail, and Clintonia and Miner’s Ridge Trails.
Fern Canyon was one of the filming locations of Jurassic Park and the rest of the state park has stunning old growth redwood groves.
[+] [-] runamok|2 years ago|reply
I too love the redwoods. I used to ride my bike all around Kings Mountain and Tunitas Creek and many other roads and just loved the experience.
When people visit I would always take them to Big Basin or Muir Woods vs. the other usual suspects.
[+] [-] m463|2 years ago|reply
And I went to big basin when it was reopened, and it was a little tragic. So many enormous, but black trunks.
You can see a lot of the green growth starting around the trunks (shown in the article pictures), but it might not look lush and green again in your lifetime.
That said, there is a lot of explosive growth of flowers in the santa cruz mountains (watch out for the white poison oak flowers)
[+] [-] hirundo|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] billiam|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] retrocryptid|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TaylorAlexander|2 years ago|reply
https://imgur.com/gallery/ukxqDBf
[+] [-] Nicholas_C|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] giobox|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abathur|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 71a54xd|2 years ago|reply
I spent what seemed like a "brief" gap year from college working for a startup in the Bay Area and spent all of my weekends hiking / camping. In 2016/2017 there was a huge rain season that caused washouts but I was dumb enough to drive all the way over the foothills to Big Basin. It was probably unwise but I'd never seen a forest explode with life like that before. Everything from the moss, to grasses and ferns all almost glowed with color. Mushrooms erupted from the ground almost anywhere you looked. And new waterways had recently cut through the forest. It was an incredible sight to witness first-hand.
I was into hiking before, but my time in Big Basin was a low-key religious experience. It was the first time I truly looked at a beautiful forest and thought to myself "why on earth would you cut all of this down to build ugly tract homes?"
I'm sad to hear about the CZU fires in 2020, however I'm of the opinion that fires happen and no ecosystem is intended to exist as we experience it forever. As I've gotten older, I've found memories I can no longer physically revisit in the same condition are some of my strongest and most cherished. That said, I hope conservationist can help support the forest as it heals.
[+] [-] soperj|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] retrocryptid|2 years ago|reply
Of course, this isn't how old-world forests work so when European-Americans started building cabins en masse up in SLV in the 1920's, they put them right next to large trees and we did everything we could to limit fire. While there are a limited number of structures in the park itself, almost 1500 structures were destroyed during the CZU fire in the adjacent communities. My old house was 10 miles away from the park and was across Big Basin Way and Boulder Creek from neighborhoods that were decimated. (TEN MILES from the park and they were still decimated.)
We can't have the same type of design, with houses right next to trees. Once you have people living up there, the likelihood you can convince people to do a "controlled" burn gets pretty low. Then the fuel builds up for another 100 years and it destroys EVERYTHING in its path.
And what do you do for families whose homes were destroyed? Of the nearly 1500 structures destroyed, only a handful of building permits have been issued to rebuild.
This is a great article about how the forest survives fire, but the policy and politics behind how we got to the CZU fire are complex and sometimes pretty subtle.
[+] [-] nomel|2 years ago|reply
This is more of a known fact [1]. But, it goes further than that! In California, there are several pyrophytes [2] that can't germinate without fire. [3]
[1] https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/giant-sequoia-needs-fire-gro...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrophyte
[3] https://tabletopwhale.com/img/posts/LivingWithFire.pdf
[+] [-] billiam|2 years ago|reply
You can't let them rebuild in place. Your points are spot on (a new survey shows 1/3 of Californians live in the urban/wildland interface where wildfires will destroy most dwellings) and it requires new zoning, new fire legislation on fire insurance, and of course the ability of people to live in higher density through infill and careful planning. The cost of housing in the Bay Area is a closely related problem, but the bottom line is that we have to let fire move through the coastal redwoods every few decades, and that means we cannot build tinderbox houses right next to those groves.
[+] [-] TinkersW|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m463|2 years ago|reply
What has grown back is groups of ~ 7 redwoods clustered around the former trunk of a felled old-growth redwood. They are more numerous and denser. I suspect with several trees competing, there will never be the thousand-year-old ecosystem again in the area.
[+] [-] thghtihadanacct|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stevesearer|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dang|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] taylorlapeyre|2 years ago|reply
Ecological and geological time is always a reminder of how brief the human lifespan truly is. 200 years is the blink of an eye for an ecosystem, but lifetimes for us. It's inspiring to see people work on restorations that they will never be able to appreciate in their own lives.
[+] [-] thghtihadanacct|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dylan604|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tylerag|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeron|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] QuadrupleA|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sullivantrevor|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aaron695|2 years ago|reply
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