The San Francisco Bay Area is an outdoor lover’s paradise. Redwood hiking paths, rugged coastlines, and other jaw-dropping Northern California landscapes lie just outside some of the nation’s most populated areas. If you’re looking for a spot that offers shady hiking and mountain biking trails through a vast expanse of coastal redwoods, and perhaps a break from the crowds at other parks, head to El Corte de Madera Creek Preserve.
Also known as El Corte de Madera Creek Open Space Preserve, this park is situated along Skyline Boulevard, a 45-minute drive from San Francisco or San Jose. It’s underrated enough that, even as a Bay Area native, I only heard about this preserve recently. At 2,908 acres, the space is unexpectedly large, covering a chunk of former logging land in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Most visitors spend time biking (the most popular option), hiking, or riding horses on the 34-mile network of multi-use trails, which winds through one of the largest remaining old-growth redwood groves in the area, past creeks, and into dry chaparral country. The park is also home to a rare tafoni sandstone formation, a 50-foot behemoth identified by the honeycomb-like pattern of holes dotting the weathered rock face.
The park has faced generations of logging, dating back to the 1860s. However, second-growth redwoods have taken the place of fallen giants, shading sorrel, redwood sword ferns, and other plants that thrive in the acidic soil. You can still see evidence of logging, from marks cut into mossy stumps to abandoned equipment.
Discover the trails at El Corte de Madera Creek Preserve
Many of the trails at El Corte de Madera Creek Preserve are steep and rugged, following old logging roads or singletracks through forested ravines. For this reason, mountain bikers flock to Corte de Madera, or “Skeggs,” as they call it…