Butano State Park Loop Hike

Yesterday I lead my De Anza College class on an 8-mile loop hike in Butano State Park. We parked at a small parking area where a service road intersects the main park road. A backpacker told one of my students that she could park behind him for the day because he would not be returning to his car until the next day. Unfortunately, a ranger came by later and gave her a ticket. She will appeal.

Walking uphill from the parking lot we continued past the turnoff to the campground and headed northeast on a dirt road and then turned right onto the Goat Hill Trail. This route took us uphill to where it intersects the Doe Ridge Trail. We followed this trail east to where it intersects the Olmo Fire Road on the ridge top. From there we walked a short distance uphill for lunch at a place where knob cone pines grow and beautiful views are to be enjoyed. After lunch we headed southwest on the Olmo Fire Road to the turnoff for the Goat Hill Trail. This trail took us west to the service road that ends at the parking lot where we began.

This route starts in the cool shady redwood forest where the ground is covered with ferns and sorrel and climbs to the sunny ridge top where oaks, pines, and manzanita abound. Along the way we saw clintonia (though not yet in bloom), redwood sorrel, sword ferns, a yellow-eyed salamander, banana slugs, an artist's palette fungus, turret spider tubes, flowering ceanothus, bush poppies in bloom, knob cone pines,  and lots of flowering Douglas iris.

There was controversy among our group about which route to take to get to Butano from the Santa Clara Valley area. I organized a carpool from Los Gatos that took us south on Highway 17 and then north on Highway 1, east on Gazos Creek Road, and north on Cloverdale Road. Others in our group said that Google recommends taking Highway 280 north to Highway 92, and then south on Highway 1. The shortest distance would be to take Highway 84 through the Santa Cruz Mountains from Skyline Boulevard. However, that route involves winding mountain roads that would probably take longer than the other two. Which ever route you take, this is one of the most remote parks in the Santa Cruz Mountains.