Ben and I did a nice 3-day hike in the Santa Cruz mountains in late March of 2026. The first day, we hiked from Stanford to Black Mountain. Being able to walk from our apartment is super convenient and fun, and we are so lucky to have Black mountain close enough that this is possible. This hike is very familiar to us by now. It is around 14 miles with a lot of uphill. There were a lot of wildflowers along the way this time, especially in Foothills and Los Trancos. If you want to hike from Palo Alto to Black Mountain but don’t want to walk this far in one day, you could stay at the campground in Foothills along the way, which is around 6 miles from Stanford.
Once we reached Black Mountain campground, we relaxed in the sun for a while and made cous cous with pesto. Then we headed over to the mountain for sunset. One unique thing about Black Mountain is that you can walk 50 yards and switch from an amazing view of mountains and the ocean to an awesome view of the towns below and the mountains across the valley. The sunset was beautiful, and Ben took tons of photos.
After a relaxing morning at Black Mountain, we hiked ~12 miles to Castle Rock State Park via Canyon, Table Mountain, and Saratoga Gap trail and then Castle Rock neighborhood roads and trail. We could have instead taken the Loghry Woods trail, but then we would have only passed by the river going by the gun range on our way, so we opted for the neighborhood route. This hike is much more forested than the first day. The highlight of the day of hiking for me was probably dunking my head in Stevens Creek.
Castle Rock Trail Camp was really busy - there were so many more people camping there than the last time we went! It was nice to see so many people enjoying the space. After hanging out and eating a yummy ramen dinner, we headed up the trail to enjoy the views and watch the sunset. We were two for two on great sunsets this trip. Then we made a campfire, woohoo!
The next day, we slowly made our way through Castle Rock State Park to the parking lot, stopping at Goat Rock and Castle Rock along the way. The views in the park are so amazing that you can’t help but go slowly and stop a ton, so it took us a few hours to hike the few miles out. After a long snack break in the parking lot area, we descended through Sanborn County Park, enjoying the redwood trees along the way. We ubered back from the main parking lot. This last day was likely ~10 miles of hiking.
After we got home and showered, we headed to Ray’s for our typical celebratory dinner, but it was sadly closed for spring break. So we changed it up and instead biked to Gott’s to celebrate a successful trip.