Saratoga News
Cover Story
Photograph by Zach Beecher
Shanti Dickson helps her 3-year-old son, Goodwyn, put on his boots while 5-year-old Brendan stands close by. Dickson and her sons, including 1-year-old Ethan, retreated from the heat of the valley to find a cooler spot in the foothills.
Happy Campers
Sanborn County Park offers a little wilderness not far from town
By Jason Sweeney
California contains spectacular parklands where lifelong memories are made. Dark, moonless nights on the Yosemite Valley floor gazing upward at immense granite Half Dome aglow in the starlight. Windswept, misty beaches at Big Sur where mountains crash against the sea. Or stark Joshua Tree National Park where spiky silhouettes make for eerie desert sunsets.
It takes a lot of planning and driving to make one of those memory-filled trips. And if you don't reserve your campsite early, your memories might consist of a night at a Motel 6 outside the park gates.
Fortunately for us last-minute types who, this late in the year, have yet to plan a camping trip and make our reservations, we still have options before the weather cools.
Sanborn County Park is a local destination for the last-minute hiker and camper. Just a few minutes drive up Highway 9 from the Santa Clara Valley floor, and there you are camping in a redwood grove next to a mountain creek.
Sanborn County Park encompasses more than 3,400 wooded acres in the Santa Cruz Mountains between the city of Saratoga and Skyline Boulevard. It contains a recreational vehicle campground, tent camping, a youth hostel and about 20 miles of trails for hikers and equestrians.
The campers
Early one hot Friday afternoon, Marc Calvillo pulls his two sons down the campground road in a cart. Calvillo's boys, Marc IV, 3, and Ethan, 6, are enjoying the ride. The park provides the cart for hauling supplies from the parking to the campground, where cars are not allowed.
Calvillo, from Santa Clara, says he usually takes his family to Yosemite but likes coming to Sanborn County Park every now and then. "It's close to home," he says.
He likes the fact cars are not allowed into the campground. "The kids can play, and you don't have to worry."
Up at the campground, Shanti Dickson, also from Santa Clara, is setting up camp under the redwoods and Douglas fir trees. Her three boys, Brendan, 5, Goodwyn, 3, and Ethan, 1, search the campsite for banana slugs. "On a hot day, it's cooler up here," Dickson says. "There's a nice stream. It's not like going up high, but it's 2 to 3 degrees cooler, anyway."
Dickson says her boys enjoy the park's Youth Science Institute, where scorpions, rattlesnakes and cockroaches are on display.
"The kids are in their element here," she says. "They get a sparkle in their eyes when they're out in the wild.
"It's great because if you don't have reservations, you can scoot on up here. It's a last-minute getaway for the short-commute camper."
Down in the parking lot, recreational vehicles are parked side by side. Awnings stretch out from the vehicles under which people lounge in lawn chairs.
Two of the recreational vehicles belong to the Lakin clan. Leonard Lakin and his wife, Cindy, are chatting and having a beer with Kevin Lakin and his wife, Eileen. Kevin is Leonard's grown son. The father and son both have children around the same age. The two couples watch from their lawn chairs as their children play in water sprayed from a garden hose.
Larissa, 8, and Desiree, 8, are Leonard's twin girls. Cody, 10, and Kevin Jr., 8, are Kevin's boys.
"We're here for a wedding," Kevin says. The Lakins are staying the night at Sanborn Park and will attend a wedding at Villa Montalvo in the morning. Kevin had driven his family down from Mount Shasta, while Leonard and his family drove down from Oregon.
The Lakins had reservations at Saratoga Springs, a nearby private campground, but the reservations fell through and they all ended up here.
"Saratoga Springs chased us out, so now the county gets our revenue," Cindy says.
Park services attendant
Michael Sitton, from San Jose, sits in the Sanborn County Park entrance kiosk. Sitton's job is to collect the entrance fees and pass out park maps as vehicles come through the gate.
"I didn't know about this park until I started working here," Sitton says. "I think it's beautiful."
This Friday afternoon, vehicles passing through the gate are few and far between. The fan hums and music plays from the radio as Sitton waits for cars during his eight-hour shift.
After 5 p.m., the number of vehicles passing through the gate starts to pick up. Cars full of young campers, and big recreational vehicles driven by older couples, pull up in a steady stream.
Sitton gets busy. He collects fees, hands out maps, answers questions and gives directions. A line of vehicles is now backed up as campers wait their turn.
Dan and Judy Payne, from San Jose, pull up to the kiosk driving a huge recreational vehicle. They say they have been coming to Sanborn Park for 25 years. "We like to use our local parks," Dan Payne says. "We really like it here in the evenings and mornings when the wildlife comes out."
A woman runs up to the kiosk and asks for Sitton's assistance. Her recreational vehicle is stuck at the turn off from Sanborn Road. Sitton walks out of the kiosk and down the road to give her a hand.
The hiker
Peter Auby is a cement mixer driver who lives in Sunnyvale. Sometimes when he gets off work, he drives up Highway 9 and parks his pickup on Sanborn Road below the park gate. He and his dog, Dusty, then hike the trails along Sanborn Creek.
Today, small groups of people have staked out sections of the creek where they drink beer and soak their feet in the water.
Sometimes Auby will hike up into the park and then up Sanborn Trail to Skyline Trail. That's about a 2-mile hike. It's another 2 miles on Skyline Trail to Summit Rock where there is a fantastic view of the Santa Clara Valley, he says.
Skyline Trail connects to the Saratoga Gap Trail, which in turn connects to the Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail. The Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail is a popular 34-mile trek down to Waddell Beach on the Pacific Ocean. Auby says he hasn't made that hike.
Auby first visited Sanborn County Park as an elementary school student while on a field trip to Walden West, an outdoor camp for children. He's been coming back to Sanborn County Park ever since.
"It's like a little oasis," he says.
It's getting late, but Auby decides to hike further up Sanborn Trail. He says about a mile-and-a-half up the trail, there is a towering grove of redwoods called the Todd Creek Woods.
Dusty spots a rabbit along the trail and chases after it. Auby says he's seen a lot of wildlife here, including bobcats and plenty of deer, but no mountain lions yet.
"A good time to see the park is in the wintertime," he says. "It's really lush. The creeks are full and everything really comes alive."
The hike up Sanborn Trail is a steep one, but not especially difficult. The thickness of the forest and the steep slope mean there is no direct sunlight, which keeps the air cool on what has otherwise been a hot day.
No other hikers are on the trail this evening. A sign along the trail identifies a dense grove of redwoods as the Todd Creek Woods.
It's dark and cool here. Fallen redwood trunks crisscross a rocky creek bed. Huge old-growth stumps mark where lumberjacks did their work more than a century ago.
It's only a short hike from here to Skyline Boulevard, but Auby says it is getting too dark and it is best to head back down the trail.
The hike down goes quickly. Soon Auby and Dusty are back in their truck ready to drive back to Sunnyvale.
"Sanborn Park is a little park that's tucked in a hole back here," Auby says. "It's a secret spot in Silicon Valley."
