On Saturday, October 8 I lead my College of San Mateo class on an adventurous field trip to Pescadero Creek County Park, deep in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Past field trips to this park took us along the Tarwater Trail Loop through the east side of this park. I thought it was time to explore the west side of the park.
After meeting at Sklyonda (Skyline Boulevard/Highway 84 intersection), we carpooled to our trailhead on Wurr Road, which is between San Mateo County Memorial Park and Pescadero Creek County Park. We then took a loop that included the Old Haul Road, Pomponio Trail, and Shaw Flat Trail, which took us back to the Old Haul Road. We hiked a short distance up a side trail which was too steep. I will leave that one out in the future, though it was a great aerobic workout. We ate lunch at the Shaw Flat Trail Camp, which is one of two trail camps in this park, and one of the few trail camps in the Santa Cruz Mountains that allow camp fires.
This loop, minus the steep side route, is about 5.5 miles. The biggest challenge was crossing Pescadero Creek twice. There are no bridges on this route, and the water level in the creek was higher than expected due to unseasonable rain last week. Some people got wet feet or else took off their shoes and socks to wade across the creek.
Though this park has been heavily logged, we came across some large and ancient redwoods. We also saw a maypole in Worley Flat, lots of banana slugs, and some crawdads in the creek. The consensus was that despite the wet creek crossings this is a worthy field trip destination. In the future I will urge students to bring sandals or water shoes for the creek crossings.
TO GET THERE... From Skyline Boulevard, take La Honda Road (Hwy 84) west. Past the town of La Honda, turn left on Pescadero Road toward San Mateo County Memorial Park. Turn left on Wurr Road and park at the parking lot just beyond the bridge over Pescadero Creek.
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