Free Republic

Daniel DeLong lives in the Santa Cruz Mountains, where packing a chainsaw is often just part of mountain life. His young daughters are as familiar with the gear – ropes, helmets, wedges, mini sledgehammer – as they are with their own backpacks. Unfortunately, The New York Times reporter who interviewed him last week during the storms, was not. “That reporter omits the most important aspect of rural mountain living: preparation. And having neighbors who look out for each other,” he says.Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here. “We’re taking the...

The Santa Cruz Mountains will soon offer a slew of new trails for hiking and biking, the product of years of grassroots work to open thousands of acres of private lands to the public. The first new trails are at San Vicente Redwoods, a preserve near the community of Bonny Doon. The property was acquired as part of a campaign by conservation groups to safeguard what is one of the largest privately owned redwood forests in California. Formerly mined and logged by materials giant Cemex, the newly protected land is making its public premiere with about 8 miles of trails...

The removal of a century-old dam in Santa Cruz County will now benefit endangered fish by supplying a habitat for them to spawn.The demolition of the Mill Creek Dam opens a door that's been closed for more than 100 years to endangered fish, like Coho Salmon to spawn upstream. Heavy equipment was brought in this week to remove the Mill Creek Dam. "The dam would have been spanning the creek right down over there. So, we were able to pull the sediment from behind the dam bring it up and shift it around so the creek could flow unimpeded," said...

Nearly a year after the CZU Lightning fire burned through California's oldest state park-the clean-up continues. The fire swept through 97% of Big Basin State Redwood Park's 18,000 acres. With historic structures now gone, the public is being asked to help with the rebuilding process. It's really going to be a labor of love, as this week the state parks unveiled a new website: ReimagingBigBasin.org, where the public can get information and get involved in the planning for its rebuilding. "The canopy is gone. So what you have are big hulking, tall hulking things that is now sprouting out greenery...

Jenny Wu is trying to give me a lot of stuff for free. She’s the owner of The Red Pearl, a beloved Chinese restaurant in downtown Boulder Creek, the gateway to what’s left of Big Basin Redwoods State Park. Wu lost her house in the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex fires and temporarily shuttered her restaurant due to the fires and pandemic, and recently her business was robbed. But here she is, shoving extra egg rolls in with my order, and dashing across the restaurant to the refrigerator, insisting I take a soda, or how about two? No charge. It’s not...

When a massive wildfire swept through California’s oldest state park last week it was feared many trees in a grove of old-growth redwoods, some of them 2,000 years old and among the tallest living things on Earth, may finally have succumbed. But an Associated Press reporter and photographer hiked the renowned Redwood Trail at Big Basin Redwoods State Park on Monday and confirmed most of the ancient redwoods had withstood the blaze. Among the survivors is one dubbed Mother of the Forest. SNIP “But the forest is not gone,” McLendon said. “It will regrow. Every old growth redwood I’ve ever...

Peninsula Open Space Trust said the caught-on-camera moment marks 'the first time this type of behavior has been captured' in the Bay AreaAn apparently playful coyote and their supposed badger buddy were captured on camera traveling together under a highway near the Santa Cruz Mountains. The adorable video made its way to Twitter Monday evening, quickly garnering hundreds of thousands of likes as well as prompting the creation of hashtags such as #CoyoteBadgerBuddies and #CoyoteBadger2020. Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST), which protects open space along the Peninsula and in the South Bay, said its wildlife cameras spotted the coyote and...

Thirty-seven years after the U.S. Air Force shut down a mountain-top radar station in the hills south of San Jose that scanned the skies for Soviet bombers during the Cold War, the summit of Mount Umunhum is finally opening to the public this week as a new park, with stunning views of San Francisco Bay, Silicon Valley and Monterey Bay. The Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, a public agency that owns the 3,486-foot peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains east of Los Gatos, spent $25 million over eight years on the project. Supporters say the new summit, which visitors will...

A gargantuan spiderweb hangs across the steep dirt road. It shimmers, translucent in the sunlight, slack lines nearly imperceptible. As I duck the web and trudge further up the road's corkscrew turn, the thick brush, thistle, weeds and poison oak part, revealing an ancient looking stone bench on the shoulder above the road. Finally. More than a year after I first searched for it, I have found the mysterious, nearly forgotten memorial to legendary California novelist Frank Norris in this far corner of the Santa Cruz Mountains. A simple cross and a crooked, barren flag holder crown the semicircular, mission-style...