By Hal Anjo

Yes, Big Basin Redwood Park has waterfalls, but one of my favorite hikes is the group of trails that connect to and from Ocean View Summit’s panoramic view. On a Friday in November, I had the pleasure to hike to the Summit with Carlisle, a park visitor from Santa Cruz, who saw my hike featured in the park activity schedule. It was a very cool morning with clear skies. There were very few visitors so we practically had the park to ourselves. We left park headquarters at 10:30 and started on the Skyline to the Sea Trail, which starts at Castle Rock State Park and runs through Big Basin on the way to Rancho del Oso and Waddell Beach. The Ocean View Summit hike is a loop shaped by four trails, Dool Trail, Middle Ridge Road, Meteor Trail, and back down to the visitor center on the Skyline to the Sea Trail.

The Dool trail meanders through mixed evergreen forest with plants and trees typically found in the middle elevations of the Waddell Watershed: Redwoods, tanbark oak, Douglas fir, and varied plant species. It’s a quiet forest – one will hear the occasional hammering of the Acorn Woodpecker and the distinctive calls of the Raven and the Steller Jay. My favorites are the stealthy Brown Creeper, the Dark Eyed Junco, and the occasional Bewick’s Wren. We made our way up the Dool Trail until it ended at the Middle Ridge Road where we turned right to begin our way up to the Ocean View Summit. We were now in what is known as upland forest and soon to be in chaparral terrain. This stretch of the hike is one of my favorites. We hiked through a mixed forest of Madrone, Knob Cone pines, Douglas fir and flowering plants that were just past their bloom.

Spring and summer wildflower blooms on the ridge are beautiful, but this was not to be in mid November. Mature Madrone is a beautiful tree that will seasonally shed its bark and reveal its smooth bare trunk in light browns and greens. Madrones often grow in beautiful twists and turns to optimize sunlight for growth. Their trunks are cool to the touch, so they are some times called the refrigerator tree. About halfway up to the summit is an unusually large Madrone that I call the Magic Madrone partly because of its unusually large, straight trunk and welcoming presence just off the trail.

We soon came into chaparral country where the terrain is dominated by various kinds of Manzanita and other low growing plants such a chaparral Pea, Yerba Santa, Sticky Monkey Flower, and the dark leaved bush, Chinquapin. The occasional Knob Cone pine struggles out of the chaparral. This is lizard and snake country and you might see several varieties of garter snake, the rubber boa, and the rattlesnake. The occasional rattler will sometimes be seen sunning itself on the road. At this point, the Middle Ridge Road is white sandstone and limestone, which makes for a very hot hike in the summer. Incredibly, this road, at 1700 feet, was under water millions of years ago. Carlisle and I arrived at the summit and climbed up to a log that sits off the road. The resting place offers a panoramic view of the surrounding mountain summits, including Chalk Mountain, Mount McAbee, and Buzzard’s Roost. It was a very clear day and the ocean was sparkling. After a snack and great conversation, we turned right and continued up the road. We soon left chaparral terrain and found ourselves once again in upland forest.

The Meteor Trail is the last leg of the hike down to the Skyline to Sea Trail. Within a couple hundred yards, the trail opens up to a downhill view of Redwoods of all sizes and age. Many of the trees in this little canyon are more than 300 feet tall with the tallest estimated to be about 315 feet. This section of the hike, which is rewardingly downhill for all but my knees, includes some of my favorite plants, including Trillium, Clintonia, Elk Clover, and Mountain Rose. Ferns include the ever-present Sword Fern, Bracken Fern, occasional Polypody, and the Chain Fern.

Next hike: Meteor Trail, December 23: www.thatsmypark.org/ event/meteor-trail-hike/2017-12-23

Hal Anjo is a Docent at Big Basin Redwood Park. He is a certified California Naturalist and volunteers for the park’s Wilderness Patrol program. He resides in Boulder Creek with his spouse, Sanda, and their cat, Charlie (formerly known as Ziggy).