Sunset and summer fog on the road to Big Basin
The Bay Area has a lot of redwoods, but only Big Basin had a large, pristine old-growth redwood forest that compared with the North Coast parks, and it was unfortunately destroyed in a major fire in 2020.
Muir Woods, Portola Redwoods, and Henry Cowell have smaller but very scenic old-growth redwood groves. The other redwood parks on this page are mainly second-growth parks, although some of them have small amounts of old growth.
Want more variety? See this page for coverage of parks throughout the Bay Area.
Big Basin had the best old-growth trail system in the Bay Area, but a major fire burned through in 2020 and the park isn’t expected to be fully open until about 2030. Even then, it won’t be the same.
A nice quiet park that appears to be mostly old growth, but the trees are pretty small. Has a small campground. The Peters Creek grove is the most impressive in the park, but it requires a long and difficult hike.
The busiest redwood park, mainly because it’s close to San Francisco. The old-growth grove is very scenic, although the redwoods aren’t especially large. Reservations are required to park anywhere near the entrance.
Features a small and very popular old-growth grove just outside Santa Cruz. The park also has a campground and an extensive second-growth trail system.
A remote, redwood-blanketed cluster of parks with some very nice second-growth trails. There are also a few patches of old growth, most notably tiny Heritage Grove.
A quiet, remote park with a remarkably lush pocket of redwoods in a coastal canyon. The canyon bottom, where the biggest redwoods were, has been heavily logged, but some old growth uplands remain.
A scenic and enjoyable park in a lush redwood-filled gorge. The Pioneer Tree Trail has a tiny but nice old-growth grove; the rest of the park is second growth.
It’s not in pristine condition, but Roy’s Redwoods has what appears to be a small, off-trail old-growth grove.
A scenic coastal park with shady redwood canyons and dramatic vistas.
Fog flowing through the Golden Gate supports a remarkably lush strip of second-growth redwoods in the East Bay, most of which are in this park.
A small Oakland park mostly covered with second-growth redwoods.
A shady park above suburban Woodside with an extensive trail system and a large developed area.
Mainly a mountain biking destination, this park has lots of rough, steep, and challenging trails.
A long trail just below Skyline Boulevard. Includes a little-known patch of upland old-growth redwoods.
This park in the green hills above Saratoga has a large developed area and a network of trails that climb up to Skyline Ridge.
A large park outside Santa Cruz with open fields and oak woodlands in the southern half and some heavily-logged canyon-bottom redwoods in the north.
A large park outside Santa Cruz entirely covered with dense, heavily-logged second-growth forest.
© 2022 David Baselt