Edhat Staff
By Robert Bernstein
We were in the Bay Area for a memorial for my father who died recently. My brother’s son and daughter in New York came out for the occasion. I was surprised that my niece knew of a Bay Area park that I had never heard of! It is called Big Basin State Park. So, after the memorial we headed down there.
Here http://swt.org/hikes/bigbasin-
Near Big Basin is the Taungpulu Buddhist Monastery which was interesting:
Big Basin apparently was the very first state park in California! It is a redwood forest about 20 miles northwest of Santa Cruz.
Since it was a hot day, we opted for a fairly flat forest loop of about five miles. We went out from the ranger station on the Sequoia Trail and returned on the Shadowbrook trail.
The most spectacular trees were actually near the ranger station!
But there were certainly other beautiful sights along the way
Including a pond with trout:
Another highlight came about 1/3 of the way around the loop at Sempervirens Falls.
Back near the ranger station we saw a big redwood with a nest in it:
The next day we stopped at Pinnacles National Park near Soledad.
Here are all of my photos!
Usually I would hike to the top of the main Pinnacles formation, seen behind us:
But on such a hot day we decided to do the shorter Balconies Caves Loop which includes the cool caves.
The loop also offers beautiful scenery…
Lichen covered trees:
…and views of the main Pinnacles formation:
