Ben and I went on an epic 4-day hike in the Santa Cruz mountains over 4th of July weekend in 2025. We started off the trip by hiking to Black Mountain from our apartment. We followed the same route that we have in our other walks to Black Mountain, going through Arastradero, Foothills, Los Trancos, and Monte Bello preserves. This hike is so nice. Our route up Page Mill to Arastradero has gotten better each time we have done this walk too - we are really starting to optimize that part of the walk. At the campsite, we made mac n cheese for dinner. Ben relaxed in the tent with a bad headache, and I walked to Black Mountain for an amazing sunset, passing some baby turkeys on the way up.
The next morning, after oatmeal and tea, we began our hike to Slate Creek trail camp in Portola Redwoods State Park. We had hiked around half of this route over Memorial day weekend, and it was nice starting our day off with some more familiar trails. Indian Creek trail in Monte Bello is so amazing. We took the Grizzly flat trail up out of the canyon and then ventured into the unknown in Long Ridge preserve. Ben chose Peter’s creek trail in Long Ridge to try to stay in the shade. It was a nice trail and had a couple families of turkeys going crazy. After a lunch break overlooking the mountains, we descended into Portola Redwoods State Park. It felt like we were walking downhill forever, which made us a bit nervous for the ascent out of the park the next day. We crossed Slate creek a mile before the campsite and decided to fill up all our water for the night in case there wasn’t easy access to the creek closer to the campground (it turns out there is at Page Mill site 0.3 miles from the campsite). We then slowly made our way to the campground, marveling at the redwoods and taking plenty of pictures along the way.
Slate Creek trail camp is surrounded by beautiful redwoods and is very peaceful. At the campground, we had a ritz and cheese snack and then went on a walk toward the visitor center and drive-in campground. We didn’t quite make it all the way there, but it was nice to explore more of the park without our heavy packs. We then made a ramen-like dinner. Mosquitos swarmed around us during this. Luckily, the mosquitos didn’t seem interested in biting us at all for some reason. That night, Ben’s sleeping pad popped sadly, so he had to keep refilling it and trying to share mine.
The next morning, we enjoyed oatmeal and tea at the campsite and then headed back toward the creek crossing. Ben had a lot of fun squirting water around and at me through his filter, and I dunked my head in the creek. We then slowly began to climb out of the park and up toward Skyline. It actually didn’t feel very hard or long, so that was great. We took a small detour to a bench in Long Ridge preserve to eat lunch and then continued on our way toward Castle Rock State Park. In Castle Rock State Park, to shorten the hike a bit, we took a road by people’s houses rather than solely trail to the campground. We stopped at a creek crossing half a mile from the campground to get water and then explored the campground. Castle Rock Trail Camp is crazy - it is huge with so many sites that are all giant and pretty secluded. We picked site 9 because it has a nice stairway going down to it. We were both hungry so decided to make cous cous almost right away, followed by some tea. Unfortunately, despite there being way fewer visible mosquitos here, these mosquitos were indeed interested in biting us. We retreated to the tent somewhat early and hung out in there a lot of the night.
We started hiking pretty early the next morning, around 9 am, wanting to get back home on the earlier side to relax and get organized for the week. But Castle Rock State Park was awesome, so we took forever to hike the 3 miles to the parking lot. We followed the Saratoga Gap Trail, which has amazing views and lots of rocks to climb. As I had only ever heard of people going to Castle Rock State Park to climb, the hiking far exceeded my expectations. The views are insane, and the rocks are epic.
We then hiked through Sanborn County Park. We initially planned to finish at Quarry Park in Saratoga, but due to a trail closure and not wanting to get home late, we decided to end at the Sanborn parking lot, near the Sanborn campground. The area was super nice to relax in, and we got to see part of a wedding. There was no service, but we were able to call an uber to the parking lot with free wifi. After a 30-minute drive back, we showered and unpacked and then headed to Ray’s to celebrate with wet burritos and margaritas.
All in all, we hiked around 50 miles. The first 1.5 days was familiar territory for us and nice hiking as usual, and the next 2.5 days were new areas that were so awesome to get to explore. I feel so lucky to get to live within walking distance to such amazing nature.