Visitors’ Guide: Saratoga and the Santa Cruz Mountains

Santa Cruz Mountains

Long Bridge
(courtesy of Saratoga History Museum)

The Santa Cruz Mountains are an enigma. Simultaneously, they are warm sunny beaches and windswept ridges, ambitious professionals and laid back ranchers, howling coyotes and pampered Arabians, towering redwoods and bristly manzanita. They are also a home, playground, workplace and retreat. The high-tech industry between freeways 101 and 280 may “pay the rent”, but the wooded canyons dropping west of Skyline Boulevard “define its soul”.

Entrance to Big Basin State Park
(courtesy of historian Chuck Schoppe)

The mountains were formed by galactic uplifts from the San Andreas Fault. Their northern reach separates the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco Bay, and they extend south through six counties to the city of Salinas.

The climate is “Mediterranean” with cool, wet winters, but it is warm and dry in other seasons. Douglas fir, live oak, Pacific madrone, and spring wildflowers share the soil with the celebrated redwoods. Fauna includes deer, chipmunks, raccoons, foxes, bobcats, mountain lions and rattlesnakes.

State parks such as Big Basin Redwoods (California’s oldest), Castle Rock and Henry Cowell Redwoods provide spectacular backdrops for enthusiasts of hiking, mountain biking, rock climbing, camping and horseback riding.

A renowned wine region since the late 1800s, the Santa Cruz Mountains became an official American Viticultural Area in 1981. The appellation is relatively cool compared to inland valleys, but in general, the exposed western slopes favor cool-climate grapes such as pinot noir and chardonnay while sheltered parts of the leeward side produce exceptional warm-loving varieties such as cabernet sauvignon, syrah and zinfandel.