Castle Rock State Park will be removed from state closure list
The Sempervirens Fund, a non-profit conservation group in Los Altos, has donated $250,000 to Castle Rock State Park, enough to keep it open for another year. The popular park is located on the ridgeline of the Santa Cruz Mountains on the Santa Clara–Santa Cruz County line, and offers sweeping views to the Pacific Coast and honeycombed sandstone formations.
In addition, the deal will allow the opening of 1,340 acres on the southern boundary of the park that have not been opened for more than a decade. The land, known as San Lorenzo River Redwoods, was purchased in 2000 by the Sempervirens Fund for $10 million from the San Lorenzo Valley Water District, which had considered logging it. The nonprofit sold the land to the state in 2004, but the state refused to open it to the public, saying it didn’t have enough rangers to patrol it. There is also a $4 million proposal to build a stylish new entrance to Castle Rock on Summit Road. The current entrance is a cramped dirt lot with dilapidated pit toilets and would be replaced by 2014. The plan would convert a nearby 33-acre Christmas tree farm that Sempervirens purchased two years ago, into a new parking area, with flush toilets, picnic sites, native plants, a small outdoor amphitheater and the trail head for the Skyline to the Sea Trail, which runs 30 miles to the ocean. Although the specifics of Castle Rock staffing levels are still being resolved between state officials and the Sempervirens Fund, the deal will bring the number of parks saved from closure to 10.
“The park is popular with Silicon Valley hikers and campers. It was established in 1968, after Dorothy Varian, the widow of Cupertino electronics pioneer Russell Varian, helped buy and donate 566 acres for a park. Since then, the Sempervirens Fund and the state have expanded its size, although its facilities have become worn.”
There are other parks that appeared among the 70 on the original list of closures from the state that have been saved from closure this year, among them: Tomales Bay and Samuel P. Taylor state parks in Marin County, along with Del Norte Redwoods near the Oregon border, which were removed from the list after the National Park Service agreed to provide rangers from nearby parks for a year; Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve, in the Eastern Sierra, which will stay open under a deal with the Bodie Foundation; Antelope Valley Indian Museum near Los Angeles and McGrath State Beach in Ventura County, which private donors have committed to keep open; Colusa-Sacramento River State Recreation Area and South Yuba River State Historical Park, which have been rescued by local governments; and Henry W. Coe State Park near Morgan Hill, which was saved from the closure list when the Coe Park Preservation Fund, a nonprofit group, announced it would provide $300,000 a year for the next three years to pay for ranger salaries and other expenses.
Twenty other parks might be saved as the result of discussions with local governments and non-profits, including Sonoma Coast, Santa Cruz Mission, Benicia State Recreation Area, Jack London, Petaluma Adobe, Point Cabrillo Light Station, Twin Lakes State Beach and Portola Redwoods in San Mateo County.
Even if all of these are somehow kept open, at least 40 parks still would be closed in less than four months, by July 1. I put the original list of 70 parks in my blog entry of May 14th, 2011.
-Bill at
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