Local Parks Day Three

Forest of the Nisene Marks

This is a gorgeous space near Santa Cruz of mostly redwoods and douglas firs.  It is named for a nature loving woman - her family purchased the land hoping for oil and when none was found her children donated the land in the 1950s in her name.  It has around 10,000 acres and 30 miles of trails.  

For some reason I went about getting to the park rather casually.  I found the green blob on my phone map, clicked the main link and asked it to kindly direct me there.  With parks this is not a recommended course of action - I did not go to the main starting point for hikes.  Instead I obeyed Siri as she commanded me to enter a road labelled "Private" and wasted 10 minutes driving past homes until I hit a dead end.  I returned to the beginning of the private road where there was one small trailhead, this sign, and another sign listing distances to three other trails.  I parked on a residential street and experienced sadness that I would not be able to use the California State Parks Pass I bought yesterday.  But thank you Siri!  If I had looked at the website for the park I would have had correct directions to the main visitor center and likely never discovered these splendid side trails.  I went one mile which was a mix of downhills and flats to a stream, then turned around and headed back up.  Absolutely going to do more of this park's trails.