Wilder

Started: 2026-05-17 14:17:03

Submitted: 2026-05-17 20:39:39

Visibility: World-readable

Mountain biking in the hills outside of town

I've had a road bike for years, which is good for many things but is basically limited to paved roads and trails by its thin slick tires. Santa Cruz has plenty of places I can road-bike, but the best cycling in the county is on dirt trails in the hills above the towns and cities. This led me to consider buying a mountain bike (possibly only after making sure I can store and transport another bike), which led me to consider renting a mountain bike for a day, which led me to the not-at-all surprising discovery that my favorite local bike shop had bike rentals that overlapped with the bikes they kept in stock. So I could demo a bike in an extended real-word test-drive.

I picked up my rental bike (a Trek Marlin hardtail) on Saturday morning, the 25th of April, on a cool muggy overcast day at the end of a week with the winter's last rain storm. (The week's rain had triggered the state park to close the trails during the week, which I forgot to check when I reserved the rental, but by the weekend the trails had dried out enough that they could reopen.) I drove to Wilder Ranch State Park, just west of Santa Cruz on highway 1, parked along the highway, and started climbing into the hills above the coastal plain.

(I grew up in Boulder where Walker Ranch was a popular mountain biking location, so it's at least slightly confusing that Wilder Ranch is a mountain biking location in Santa Cruz.)

I turned off the fire road climbing a valley onto the West Englesman Trail. The trail climbed a ridge between two minor creeks, with broadly-spaced towering oak trees standing by themselves on the grassy hillsides, and bay trees lining the narrow gullies above intermittent creeks. It was spring, and the hillside was still green after winter rains, before turning golden for the summer. I climbed easily, finding the right gear; the bike's 12 gears gave me all the range I needed. My bike's fat knobby tires gripped the ground effortlessly and ate up the distance.

West Englesman Trail at Wilder Ranch State Park

My caption for this photo identifies it as the "West Englesman Trail", but I have three different maps that give the trail three different names. My printed Trails Illustrated map from 2017 (#816, Big Basin, Santa Cruz) appears to identify this segment as part of the Old Cabin Trail. The printed map on the sign at the trailhead calls it the Wild Boar Trail. The online GIS map provided by the state park calls it the West Englesman Trail; and I've decided to use the GIS map on the theory that it's probably the most up-to-date.

I reached a junction and tried to find my place on my printed map, and descended the single-track Old Cabin Trail into Peasley Gulch, descending towards intermittent Meder Creek. Redwood trees grew in the gulch. The trail descended steeply to the creek at the bottom then climbed just as steeply up the opposite side. I took the descent slowly and cautiously, getting the feeling for how my rental bike behaved. On the ascent there were a few places where I lost my balance and stopped and then had trouble getting started again because I was in too low of a gear: I had so much torque that my rear wheel would just spin out while I was trying to mount the bike before I had a chance to bring the other foot up and clip in.

Old Cabin Trail crosses Meder Creek

I emerged on the other side of the gulch and hit the Eucalyptus Loop Trail. Here I turned uphill and climbed along the edge of a broad meadow, with the trees along the gulch to my right and the flat green grassy meadow to my left. At least one of my maps represents this as a fire road, but this seemed less like a road and more like a couple of tracks running in the same general direction that were being quickly reclaimed by the grasses and ferns encroaching from both sides. At the top of the meadow were the burned trunks of several tall deciduous trees, and I wondered if they were all that remained of the eponymous eucalyptus.

Eucalyptus Loop Trail

I stopped to eat lunch at the top of the meadow in a group of picnic tables. I wasn't sure if I ought to be able to see the ocean (the geography of the meadow suggested that the horizon might be below the trees), but the low clouds that hung over the hillside limited my visibility beyond the end of the meadow.

Meadow at the top of the Eucalyptus Loop Trail

After eating I biked up the Chinquapin Trail and descended the Long Meadow Trail. Both were marked as fire roads, and they both looked better maintained than the Eucalyptus Loop. On the descent the low clouds began something between a heavy mist and a light drizzle, just enough to obscure my glasses.

I turned onto the Old Cabin Trail and descended into the gulch again, following the same route as earlier. The almost-rain made the trail a bit muddier, but this time around I was a bit more confident on the more-technical portions of the trail. Near the top of the trail I spotted fresh horse droppings, and on my descent I caught a glimpse of a rider on a horse at a walk ahead of me in the trees. They spotted me, and sped ahead at a faster gait (a trot? canter?). I knew I was supposed to yield to horses, but it wasn't entirely clear how to resolve a situation where I would be faster than a horse and might want to overtake them.

Trek Marlin rental bike

I stopped at the trail junction at the other end of the Old Cabin Trail to catch my breath and take a picture of my bike, then turned downhill down the Eucalyptus Loop. The trail narrowed to a single-track through a forest of bay trees. The rain might have picked up while I was on the trail, or the leaves of the trees above me were condensing more of the moisture out of the saturated air and dripping it down on me below.

Eucalyptus Loop single-track

I made a series of turns to start heading back to the base of the mountain where I came from, and at one of the junctions I found the horse and rider waiting for me, pulled off to the side to let me pass. "You caught up with me," the rider said, and I nodded in acknowledgement as I biked past.

Presently I joined the Wilder Ridge Loop, a broad fire road, for the long descent to the bottom of the hill. From the road I could look all the way down the grassy hillside to the ocean below, just visible below the clouds. The descent was fast and easy, with gravity to help me; but the ground was just wet enough that my rental bike ended up plastered in mud and gravel from the road.

Looking down towards the ocean at Wilder Ranch

I returned to my car and returned the rental to the bike shop, after a great ride in the mountains, confirming my interest in buying my own mountain bike (but I need to make sure I can fit it in the garage and transport bikes on our cars, and it'd be a good idea to make sure my younger child can bike reliably as well).

I recorded the whole ride on my fitness watch so I have the full track, minus a couple of places where I didn't remember to resume my ride at the right moment: