Wilder Ranch State Park

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1401 Coast Road
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
(831) 423-9703
www.parks.ca.gov/default.asp?page_id=549

Wilder Ranch State Park is bisected by California State Highway 1. South of the highway lie beautiful coastal cliffs and brussel sprout fields perfect for long walks. There is access to a couple of great surfing locations. North of the Highway (uphill, away from the coast) it is horse and mountain bike country. There are corrals and trailer offloading sites, but call ahead for conditions!
Because the downhill is so fun but the uphill brutal, mountain bikers often do the easier loop up through the University of California at Santa Cruz and then blast down through the park at full throttle. This is an elevation change of about 1000 feet. See the slideshow tour kibak.com/WilderRicoh/index.htm
You can easily spend the entire day at Wilder and not run out of bike trails... vast vistas of the Monterey Bay alternate with redwood groves, sagebrush canyons, and grassy meadows. If you are by yourself you will often see coyote, bobcats, and mule deer. Mountain Lion scat has been spotted in the park from time to time, as have rattlesnakes. The park management is conducting a program of controlled burning, attempting to restore the pre-columbian vegetation patterns and reduce fuel load. Depending on the version of the Google Earth satellite image displayed, you may notice the smoke and the burned areas at the appropriate zoom level.
If you've got little pre-bikers, they'll love the park headquarters. It is a restored, 1940's era California farm, with chickens and goats for the kids to pet/watch. The horse corral is a short walk through a tunnel under the highway and there is lots of lawn for picnics.
Finally, there is a fellow by the name of Eric Goetz that puts together these incredible Quicktime VR views of parks and he has prepared an amazing collection for Wilder Ranch, see www.virtualparks.org/parks/wilder-text-list.html

The rectangle should be extended about 2 kilometers North and 500 meters East in order to more correctly encompass the park.