About the Park

Big Basin Redwoods State Park, in the Santa Cruz Mountains above Boulder Creek, is California's oldest state park, established in 1902 to save its ancient coast redwoods from logging. It covers more than 18,000 acres from ridge tops over 2,000 feet high down to the Pacific at Waddell Beach. Some of its redwoods are more than 50 feet around and 1,000 to 1,800 years old.

Before the Park

People lived in or near Big Basin for at least 10,000 years before Spanish explorers arrived in the late 1700s. California State Parks names the Cotoni and Quiroste as the tribes whose homeland this was, two of more than 50 tribes of the Ohlone culture around the San Francisco and Monterey bays. The park's 2026 infosheet also honors the Achistaca, and today the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band carries on that legacy of stewardship.

Grinding rocks in the park show where acorns and seeds were pounded into flour. The agency describes these lands as an interior food basket for coastal people, who gathered seeds, bulbs and basket materials, hunted elk and deer, and used fire to encourage useful plants.

Logging and the Sempervirens Club

After the Gold Rush, logging spread through the Santa Cruz redwoods. By 1884 the area's 28 sawmills were cutting more than 34 million board feet a year. In 1900 San Jose photographer Andrew P. Hill was accused of trespassing while photographing redwoods in Welch's Grove (now part of Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park). He refused to hand over his negatives and vowed to make the forest a public park.

After a meeting at Stanford University in May 1900, Hill and a group of journalists, politicians and businessmen spent three days exploring Big Basin and formed the Sempervirens Club. Writer Carrie Stevens Walter was among its founders. The club pushed the state legislature, which passed a purchase bill unanimously in 1902.

California Redwood Park Becomes Big Basin

The new park was named California Redwood Park and has been called Big Basin Redwoods State Park since 1927. In 1906 the state commission acquired 3,901 acres from the Big Basin Lumber Company, and 3,785 more acres came from federal land in 1916. In the 1930s the Civilian Conservation Corps built the redwood Nature Lodge, the park headquarters, a campfire center, cabins and a trail network.

In 1968 the Sempervirens Fund revived the club's work. In the 1970s and '80s it worked with State Parks to create the Skyline to the Sea Trail and to add land including part of Rancho del Oso on the coast.

Why It Is Called Big Basin

The name comes from geology. California State Parks explains that movement on the Ben Lomond Fault, which runs just south of the park entrance, raised the land and at times dammed the creek, forming a lake. Sediment filled it until the channel reopened and the lake drained. The "big basin" is one of those former lakes.

The 2020 CZU Lightning Complex Fire

On August 18, 2020, the CZU Lightning Complex Fire swept through 97% of the park. It destroyed every historic structure, including the CCC-era headquarters, and all the campgrounds. Most of the old-growth redwoods survived, and the park reopened for limited day use in July 2022. The full story is on our fire and recovery page.

The Park Today

Big Basin is still home to the largest continuous stand of ancient coast redwoods south of San Francisco, alongside second-growth redwood, mixed conifer, oak, chaparral and streamside forest. Deer, raccoons and bobcats live here, and birds include Steller's jays, acorn woodpeckers and the endangered marbled murrelet, which nests in old-growth redwoods. The park is supported by the Mountain Parks Foundation, Save the Redwoods League, Sempervirens Fund and Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks.