July 27, 2013 a portrait of santa cruz, part 3 - woods and hills
This post is part of a series. To read the first post, click here. To see more Santa Cruz photos, click here.
The beach was immediately accessible to me when I first moved to Santa Cruz, but it took me a while to find the woods. As I said in the last post, I've never owned a car here, so my woodland explorations around Santa Cruz were all with other people who were using their vehicles to convey us to a parking area near a trailhead. It wasn't until I'd lived in this town for about four years that I started to realize that even without a car, I could get to the most beautiful trees I'd ever seen.
Here's how my forest habit started: I got a part-time job working in Bonny Doon, a woodsy rural area northwest of the center of Santa Cruz. At first I relied on a coworker for transportation. After a few months of this, I realized I could get to my job by taking the bus and walking through the woods from the bus stop. It thrilled me to be able to travel so far without a car, and the forest was always enchanting. I found myself looking forward to the hours spent hiking to and from my job.
Yes, it took hours to get to and from that job. Am I crazy for not minding this long walking commute? I wondered. After a while I stopped wondering about that, and started looking for more ways to get to the woods on my days off. It turned out there were many forested areas around Santa Cruz. I found them and began to explore. I went when it was sunny and when it was rainy. I went with my camera in hand and a bag full of snacks so I could stay the whole day. For several years, the beach was completely forgotten.
The easiest woodland area to get to without a car is Pogonip. This city park– technically a greenbelt property–contains over 600 acres of open meadows, streams, and woods. You can reach Pogonip by walking a couple of miles from downtown Santa Cruz, or you can do what I usually do and ride the city bus up to the UC Santa Cruz campus. A gorgeous trail starts near Crown and Merrill Colleges and winds down through Pogonip, connecting with other trails, taking the hiker all the way to a park entrance that's relatively close to downtown. There are something like eight miles of trails in Pogonip, and I've come to love every single one of those miles.
In the early days of Santa Cruz tourism, the meadow portion of Pogonip was part of a club and golf links created by Fred Swanton, who I mentioned in the previous post. It later closed as a golf course and reopened as a polo club. Pogonip has also served as a location for movies and as a social club. The city acquired this land in 1988; the original Pogonip Clubhouse is still onsite, and is slowly being restored by the city, for purposes to be determined. I didn't include any photos of that wonderful old building in this post, because it really deserves a whole post of its own. I'm hoping that the restoration of the clubhouse means that someday I'll get to go inside it and take pictures.
The word "pogonip" comes from a Shoshone word meaning "ice fog." Nobody really knows how this word came to be applied to a place that is far from where the Shoshone lived, and does not experience ice fogs. It's thought that the Ohlone people who lived in Santa Cruz probably used this site, but no archaeological remains have been found of such use. Pogonip later became part of Cowell Ranch. Long before it became a park, Pogonip experienced massive loss of old-growth redwoods due to early logging for lumber and fuel purposes. Several of the current trails are laid down on top of the remains of old logging roads. Despite the nineteenth century destruction of almost all its virgin trees, Pogonip manages to appear pristine and natural. This resilient forest has bounced back in a big way.
Part of Cowell Ranch was sold to the University of California to become the location for UC Santa Cruz in 1969, and Pogonip is what was left over from that transaction. The continuity of the land that once made up Cowell Ranch is still present; in some ways, it feels like it's still part of one big landholding. Pogonip is intimately linked to the undeveloped parts of UC Santa Cruz via many interconnected upper campus trails. I began exploring these trails soon after I discovered Pogonip. Upper campus being adjacent to Pogonip meant that the amount of woodland beauty available for my enjoyment was more than doubled.
For many months I was visiting the Pogonip/UCSC complex every Sunday. A weekend felt incomplete without a hike through those woods. Each season had its pleasures. I loved watching the place change gradually from the dripping greenness of the winter rainy season to the fog of summertime. When it rained, I walked the trails in a giant nylon poncho, damp and ecstatic. I usually had the whole place to myself on those days. In the pauses between rain showers, and in the thickest morning fog, the forest smelled wonderful: the sweetness of bay leaves, the richness of wet moss and redwood duff. Rain brought mushrooms in delicate colors and fascinating textures. Everywhere I walked I found banana slugs, yellow and slimy and beautiful, sometimes shockingly huge. I grew protective of them, and often reached down to speed their crossings of mountain bike trails.
The visual appeal of the forest was different from that of the seashore. Near the ocean, all was soaked in light and if I looked up, I could see the horizon. The forest, on the other hand, offered a shorter line of sight and a multitude of tiny vignettes. Walking in the woods meant seeing new objects with every step and bend in the path. I learned to keep my eyes open for intriguing new arrangements of rocks, trees, and insects. I began to appreciate the way things fell apart and decomposed, fresh life emerging from the decay. I realized how little I knew about what really goes on in the forest. It was a world of private interactions and secret patterns, governed by mysterious processes.
I can't think of a way to adequately express how much this world of redwoods, oaks and creeks came to mean to me. I felt deeply connected to these trails, always ready to walk there and see what was happening in my favorite spots. Heartaches and frustrations were forgotten, exhaustion ebbed, and it was impossible to be lonely. Something about the forest made me feel accepted and loved. Perhaps this was because I lavished so much of my own love on the place that it was reflected back to me. Despite my lack of knowledge of the processes that governed the woods, my heart understood this little universe. Organic detritus jumbled on the ground, green sprouts in rotten logs, shafts of sunshine aiming through upper branches to spotlight vivid leaves: it all made sense on an unconscious level. It all made me feel more comfortable with my own chaos, with the messiness of having feelings and living in my own skin.
Surely many people feel this way in the forest. Santa Cruz is a marvelous place for those who require regular woodland therapy. There lots of trails and open spaces close to town, and they are mostly connected to each other. Pogonip connects to upper campus, which is linked to Wilder Ranch State Park with its 34 miles of trails. From Pogonip you can also enter Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, which has 20 miles of trails and lots of magnificent old-growth redwoods. These are incredible natural resources to have nearby, and they have spoiled me. It's hard now to imagine living anywhere that doesn't allow me to get on a bus and end up in the trees. I didn't foresee, when planning my move to Santa Cruz, that the woods would end up being my favorite part of the story.
Whenever I ride the bus from up in Bonny Doon to downtown Santa Cruz, there is a wonderful moment when we leave the woods near the western entrance of UC Santa Cruz and emerge on the open hills above the coast. The view at that stoplight on Empire Grade is stunning. Around sunset, I can usually see the marine layer of fog creeping in from offshore, a bank of white layered above and below with color.
If I hike across campus to the eastern side I get a different view, this one of the town below, the Boardwalk, and the paths of Pogonip. I walk down through Pogonip and emerge on the Great Meadow with a closer yet still distant view of Santa Cruz. I love these hills above town and the opportunity they offer to look at my home from far away. Sometimes the hills are green, and sometimes they're yellow-brown. The grass grows tall on the Great Meadow and then gets cut down and bound in bales in summer. I like to walk among these golden bales and pretend I'm in a Van Gogh painting, or sit on them and eat chocolate bars with a friend.
On these hills above town I see deer, coyotes, bobcats, lizards, snakes, beetles, and lots of birds. I see people walking alone or in pairs, tiny pieces of a much larger picture. The hills feel serene, uncomplicated, a place to spy on civilization and remember how small human things can become when they're miles away. Up there I can put Santa Cruz into my camera's frame and let it be just a photograph, a scene I can enter by strolling down the hill. Or I can put the whole town away, if I want to, by walking into the woods behind me.
These are gorgeous captures of pogonip's beauty. I love your ode to the Nip.