Navigate: Top -->South Bay Area -->Wilder Ranch

Steve and I had been exchanging e-mails for a while and had been talking about riding together since I discovered his web site about a month ago. When he mentioned that he was thinking about going to Wilder Ranch I jumped on the opportunity. I had heard a lot of good things about this place and wanted to see if they were true.

To make matters more interesting Steve had just purchased a Helmet Camera to go along with his digital cam corder so we decided we would take a go at making a video. We had mixed results with the video recording and the video was at least partially responsible for my one mishap of the day. Hopefully we will do a little better with the video when we go to Downieville.

Overall I would say Wilder Ranch's reputation for having awesome singletrack mountain biking is well deserved. If you wanted a truely epic mountain biking experience you could a spend a week in Santa Cruz and ride this trail and some of the awesome trails on Skyline Boulevard (Hiway 35) such as Saratoga Gap.

Overview

• Type of trail : Multiple Options Loops and Out and Back
• Distance as rode : 21 miles
• Total Miles (Available) : 30+ miles
• Climbing Distance : Unknown, more than 1000', less than 3000'
• Difficulty : (Scale of 1-10)
  • Enchanted Forest: 8 out of 10
  • Old Cabin: 6 out of 10
  • Most Everything else: 4 out of 10
• Trail Type : 70% Fireroad+, 20% Doubletrack, 10% Singletrack
• Cardio : Moderate

  Location:

  Get to Santa Cruz and take Hiway 1 North out of town about 1-2 miles. Trailhead is on the left. Facilities at the trailhead include flush toilets, drinking fountain, and sinks for cleaning up blood and dirt after the ride. Santa Cruz is cooler than the valley but when you are riding up in the hills you get plenty hot. Make certain to bring plenty of H2O (I ran out).

  Links:

  • California State Parks Page on Wilder Ranch
  • Roger McGee's Ride Guide we didn't follow this route and reviewing it I like the route we took better. Roger avoided the Zane Grey cutoff and the lower portion of Wilder Ridge trail which were very fun.
  • MTBR review of this trail.
  • More images and ride info from Steve Wolf's Page
  • Video's of our ride on Steve Wolf's Page

  I'm sitting on a beach in Santa Cruz typing this on my laptop. Steve and I just finished the Wilder Ranch ride and and it was a blast. We rode 20 miles, several sections twice. This is probably one of the toughtest rides I have been on from the point of view of total effort. There are miles of awesome singletrack winding through scenic meadows and cool redwoods.

  We started out at the main trailhead on the coast and headed East under the hiway and up the Englesman loop. Our goal was to hit as much of the singletrack in the park as we could manage. After about 2 Miles of climbing you reach the crest of a hill and there is a singletrack turnoff for Wild Boar trail.

  Wild Boar is a short section of singletrack leading towards the first fun section that Steve remembered riding "Old Cabin Trail".

  Old Cabin drops down into several (currently dry) creek crossings and a series of really fun switchbacks, drops over tree roots and rocks, and fast banked curves which pass through a very beautiful redwood grove. This was a really fun section of the trail and most places this would have been the highlight of the ride. At Wilder Ranch this was just a warmup for some really awesome riding. Steve shot helmetcam style video the whole way down Old Cabin and some still video of me on a couple of the more difficult climbs.

  Old Cabin Scott.n.Klein -=- September 11th 2007 I just found this website and I remember what a great time we had riding Wilder in '98 I'm definitely going to have to visit Wilder Ranch again before the bad weather months hit this year. Terrific website. Thanks!

  <- Previous - Thumbnail Gallery - Printable Page - Next ->