Four years ago, a devastating forest fire devastated the Big Basin Redwoods, California’s oldest state park. 97 percent of the landscape was charred and all buildings and campgrounds were destroyed. Left behind were ruins where cherished family memories had been kept for generations.
Now hikers have returned. The trails are open again. The blackened redwoods — some of which are 300 feet tall and date back to the Roman Empire — have almost all survived and are covered in bright green new branches.
But none of the buildings – from the rustic visitor center to the restrooms – have been rebuilt. The park still has no electricity or running water.
On Wednesday, Big Basin will take a significant step toward recovery when the California Department of Parks and Recreation holds its first public meeting to present three options for rebuilding facilities at the 18,000-acre park in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
The document, titled “Facilities Management Plan,” was written by park planners after several years of public meetings.
The three options vary in the number of parking lots and campgrounds to be built at different locations. But they all have two major changes in common: moving the visitor center and main parking lot out of the old-growth forest where it had been for a century, and reducing traffic by using a shuttle bus from a parking lot on the eastern edge of the park in an area called Saddle Mountain, at least on busy weekends and summer days.
“The real focus is to remove the major development from the heart of the redwood forest and move it to a location that is less prone to fire and less disruptive to the redwoods,” said Chris Spohrer, director of the Santa Cruz District of State Parks.
The open house, where the three options will be presented in detail, will be held on Wednesday from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Simpkins Family Swim Center & Live Oak Community Center, 979 17th Ave, in Santa Cruz. Admission is free and no advance registration is required.
State parks officials are also collecting public input on the plan online at reimaginingbigbasin.org through Wednesday.
Spohrer said there will be another open house next spring. Then park officials will select a preferred plan by next summer. The hope is to start construction in 2026, he said.
Since the CZU Lightning Complex Fire, which began with lightning strikes on August 16, 2020, the recovery has been slow but steady.
Two years ago, visitors were allowed back into the park after downed power lines, burned buildings and charred vehicles were removed. Parking reservations are recommended, especially on weekends, and can be obtained through the park’s website.
In total, 38 miles of trails and firebreaks have been reopened to cyclists, hikers and horseback riders. Rangers in state park uniforms greet visitors from a makeshift kiosk near the former visitor center, which is shaped like a 1930s log cabin.
Environmental groups that have helped build and expand Big Basin over the years say things are generally moving in the right direction.
“Ecologically, the forest is recovering very well,” says Sara Barth, executive director of the Sempervirens Fund, a Los Altos nonprofit whose members helped convince state lawmakers to save the park in 1902 when loggers cut down the ancient trees for fence posts and railroad ties.
“Infrastructure has moved much more slowly,” she said. “In many ways, very little progress has been made. I wish the pace was faster. But the magnitude of what was lost was so massive. And I applaud the fact that State Parks has thought carefully about what it wants to look like in the future and not just rebuilt everything the way it was.”
A central element of the new plans is to use the 17-acre property on Saddle Mountain, which Sempervirens purchased in 2007 and which California State Parks has still not transferred ownership of, as a new hub for arriving visitors to the park, with a new visitor center and shuttle bus stop.
Next to Saddle Mountain is another key piece of property: Little Basin, a 534-acre site that was once a campground that technology pioneers Bill Hewlett and David Packard bought in 1963 for company outings. On that property, Hewlett and Packard served steaks to employees and hosted softball games in the 1960s and 1970s as part of their morale-boosting “HP Way.” In 2007, Hewlett-Packard sold it to the Peninsula Open Space Trust, a Palo Alto-based environmental group, which converted it into a state park.
The three options would see between 42 and 79 spaces for cars and 14 cabins for campers at Little Basin. As for parking, there are currently 70 spaces on the main Big Basin site near the old headquarters. That number would be between 50 and 96 in the future, and between 120 and 150 at Saddle Mountain.
Not everyone is enthusiastic about the new plans. Neighbors who live near Saddle Mountain say they would prefer to see the buildings rebuilt at their old location.
“We’re worried about traffic, noise and people wandering onto other people’s property,” said Jesus Beltran, a mechanical engineer who lives near Saddle Mountain. “The state parks could be more efficient in rebuilding the old growth forests. Most people will end up there anyway.”
Others say the fire has given society a new opportunity to rebuild the parks in a way that will restore peace to the famous stands of ancient redwood trees.
“Everything from the paving that prevents water from seeping out of the roots of the old trees to the buildings and fuel tanks and the flammable material that comes with them puts resources at risk,” said Sam Hodder, president of the Save the Redwoods League, a San Francisco-based environmental group. “If visitors can enjoy a healthier forest ecosystem that isn’t burdened by a lot of infrastructure, that will create a better experience and a healthier redwood forest.”
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