Portola Redwood State Park

Sequoia nature trail, Iverson trail and Tip Toe Falls

This is a beautiful, beautiful state park in the Portola valley, just off Skyline boulevard in La Honda California. The sad part first, it is one of the parks selected to be shut down by July 2012 due to budget cuts. I wish we could all do a little bit more for these parks, and we can, by just visiting them. So please do visit these parks, they need help.

Now onto the happy part. Firstly, its a long winding drive to get to the park from anywhere in the bay area. The roads are narrow and winding so lower gears and slow driving is essential. You would want to stay aware of cyclists and motor bikes on the roads as well. Once you are at the park, get to the visitor center and pay the day usage fees. While you're at the visitor center spend some time looking at the various nature exhibits.You can then park your car in one of three day use lots viz, Huckleberry, Madrone and Tan Oak day use areas. We chose the Tan Oak area due to its proximity to the visitor center.

Bridge on Sequoia Nature Trail

The hike that we chose to do started off right behind the visitor center on the Sequoia nature trail. This is a short trail which runs about a mile and half long, including a loop around the Shell tree. After you get on the sequoia trail, cross the bridge and stay on the trail for another 0.3mi. At this point you should be at a junction that splits in the Iverson trail and the other arm that continues as the Sequoia trail. Stay on the right to continue on the Sequoia trail to get to the Shell tree. This tree was burnt down by a careless camper in 1989, it was a 2000 year tree with a base circumference of 54 feet. What a shame!!

Getting onto the Iverson trail

Once done with the loop around Shell tree, you can head back to the junction where you stayed on the right and get onto the Iverson trail. A further 1.25mi on the Iverson trail will lead you to a spur. The tip toe falls are at the end of this spur. All along this section, you are right alongside the Pescadero creek. This provides ample opportunity to get down creek side and enjoy the beautiful sounds they make flowing downstream. After about of 10 minutes sitting in front of the falls we made our way back on the Iverson trail heading towards Iverson cabin site. From here cut across the summit trail, the service road and back on the Iversion trail to head back to the visitor center. Round trip will be about 6 miles.

From this post onwards I will post all the relevant images in the hike. You will be able to co-relate them to the sections of the hike outlined above.

Deer Hollow Farm and PGE Trail

Hike at Rancho San Antonio -Los Altos


Set off to get to the park at 6 in the morning and then realizing that we had no energy bars left. After a hasty little detour to a 24 hours Safeway, we were back on our way to Los Altos. Having reached the park by 6:30AM, I somehow unnecessarily parked about a mile away from the trail head, perceiving a lack of parking space. Bad mistake!, if you're there that early park right opposite to the trail head.

Trail to Deer Hollow farm

After the mile hike to the trail head we were on the actual trail to Deer Hollow farm on the path shown in the adjacent picture. A couple of miles later we were at the farm. Continue about 0.4mi to the split in 'Rogue valley Trail'.

Spotted deer

At this junction, we saw a few spotted deer. After spotting these deer, we got onto the "Wildcat loop trail". We hiked about 0.9mi on this trail, at the end of which was a very nice outlook with some wildflowers in bloom. The vista overlooked the NASA Ames facility and US-101.

Looking at the PGE trail from the Meadow trail

From the lookout at the end of the wildcat loop trail we got onto the "Upper High Meadow Trail". This trail offers some nice views towards the bay and you can see the PGE trail from here. The trail is known as the PGE trail for somewhat inane obvious reason of the utility having their transmission towers right alongside the trail. This trail is a tough one to hike downhill due to the steep gradient but we did it nonetheless. We ended up with sore feet but had a great time doing it. It is about 1.9mi to get back to the wildcat loop trail and a further 0.5mi to deer hollow farm and about 1.1mi to the parking lot.
Things to keep in mind:
1. Bring a lot of sunscreen, a vast majority of this park has no overhead tree cover.
2. Be prepared to share the trails with horses, bikes and a ton of hikers.

Have fun at Rancho San Antonio.