TRIP 2 Portola Redwoods State Park

Distance		5 miles, Loop
Hiking Time		2 to 3 hours
Elevation Gain/Loss		±1100 feet
Difficulty		Moderate
Trail Use		Backpacking option1
Best Times		All year
Agency		CSP
Recommended Map		Portola Redwoods State Park (CSP)
Note		1at Slate Creek Trail Camp, 1.1 miles from junction of the Slate Creek and Summit trails.

HIGHLIGHTS Using the Coyote Ridge, Slate Creek, and Summit trails, along with a service road, this redwood-shaded loop explores rolling terrain on both sides of Peters Creek, a tributary of Pescadero Creek. This Santa Cruz Mountain state park is an important link in a chain of open space that connects Silicon Valley with the San Mateo coast. (If you have time, also visit the Sequoia Nature Trail, a self-guiding route that starts beside the visitor center.)

DIRECTIONS From the intersection of Skyline Blvd. (Highway 35) and Page Mill Road/Alpine Road, go west 3.4 miles on Alpine Road to Portola State Park Road. Follow Portola State Park Road 3 miles to the entrance kiosk (if the kiosk is unattended, pay day-use and camping fees at the visitor center, ahead). Go another 0.4 mile to the Madrone picnic/parking area, left.

FACILITIES/TRAILHEAD There are family and group campsites in the park. Reservations are always required for group camps and are required mid-May through Labor Day for family campsites; call (800) 444-7275. The Slate Creek trail camp is 1.1 miles northeast of the Slate Creek Trail/Summit Trail junction; call (831) 338-8861 (Big Basin Redwoods State Park) for reservations. The park is closed to all camping December–March.

Just past the parking area is the park office/visitor center, with displays, books, maps, and helpful staff. Restrooms, phone, and water are nearby. There are picnic tables and restrooms beside the parking area. The trailhead is on the west side of Portola State Park Road, opposite the entrance to the parking area.

The Iverson Trail, a wide dirt path, leads you northwest through a lush corridor of evergreen huckleberry. After about 100 feet, a fence forces you to turn right, and you climb on a moderate grade until the route soon levels. Where the Iverson Trail turns left, you go straight, on the Coyote Ridge Trail. When you reach a paved road, cross it and regain the single-track trail. Your route zigzags its way uphill and then teeters on the edge of a steep slope that drops left.

Gaining a ridgetop, the trail heads north and climbs moderately to a junction, at about 1.2 miles, with the Upper Coyote Ridge Trail. Here you stay on the Coyote Ridge Trail by bearing right. Now you descend and curve right, leaving the ridgetop. The trail, in places steep, drops into a ravine holding a tributary of Peters Creek. You cross the tributary on a plank bridge, then turn right and walk downstream. When you reach paved Portola State Park Road, cross it and find the continuation of the Coyote Ridge Trail on the other side.

Coast redwoods are among the world’s tallest trees and also among the fastest growing.

Walking down a set of steps (slippery when wet!), you turn left on a level dirt path. Peters Creek is to your right, behind a screen of shrubs. Bigleaf maples sway overhead, in the fall decorating the scene with their colorful leaves. Trillium and redwood sorrel, two shade-loving plants, thrive in the moist soil beside the trail. Where a set of steps rises left to the paved road, you turn right and cross a bridge spanning Peters Creek. Beyond the creek, find the Slate Creek Trail, which angles left.

Park Trees & Critters

• Take time to admire the coast redwoods and equally impressive Douglas-firs towering overhead; the trail may be littered with their cones and twigs. Other common coastal trees, such as coast live oak, California bay, and madrone thrive here as well.
• Listen for the raucous braying call of the acorn woodpecker, a species named for its habit of storing acorns in holes drilled in tree trunks; these so-called granary trees can contain thousands of acorns, and serve a community of woodpeckers.
• Fire-hollowed redwood stumps were sometimes used by early settlers to keep domestic geese and other animals, hence their name, goosepens; today they are used as den sites by mammals ranging in size from bats to bears.

Sawing Logs

In 1867, William Page began operating a sawmill on Peters Creek, just outside the park’s present-day boundaries. In 1875, the mill was moved to a site on Slate Creek, upstream from where the Slate Creek Trail Camp is now located. The road used to haul lumber over the summit and down to Palo Alto was named Page Mill Road. Part of that historic alignment may exist today as the Old Page Mill Trail, which descends about 500 feet in a little less than 2 miles, from Alpine Pond in Skyline Ridge Open Space Preserve.

Now you follow a road that alternates between paved and dirt. At the next junction, leave the road by turning left and climbing a few steps. From here, the Slate Creek Trail is a single track wandering among impressive redwoods, some of them fire-scarred. Gaining elevation on a gentle and then moderate grade, you arrive at a junction. The Slate Creek Trail to Old Tree Trail goes straight, but your route, the Slate Creek Trail to the Slate Creek Trail Camp, goes left.

The trail is tucked in the folds of a ridge that rises steeply to the left. A tributary of Peters Creek is downhill and right, and during the rainy season it collects water spilling through gullies that cross the trail. In a clearing atop a ridge, at about 3.6 miles, you meet the Summit Trail on your right. (The Slate Creek Trail continues for several more miles until it meets Ward Road, providing a connection with Long Ridge Open Space Preserve. Along the way, it passes Slate Creek trail camp and then the second site of Page’s sawmill.)

Your route veers right on the Summit Trail, skirting a hill called The Summit on the park map. A right-hand switchback helps you gain a ridgetop, but you hold the high ground for only a short while before descending across a steep, southwest-facing slope. Several switchbacks and a set of steps help you downhill, past two water tanks, to a dirt road. This road curves downhill to a junction with a paved road, called Service Road on the park map. From here, turn right and follow the paved road about 0.6 mile to the parking area, which will be on your right just past the park office.