Big Basin State Park welcomes visitors back with limited reopening
SANTA CRUZ COUNTY -- Big Basin Redwoods State Park in Santa Cruz County officially reopened to visitors in a limited capacity on Friday.
It marked the first time it has been open to the public since the CZU Lightning Complex Fire ripped through the park.
More than 97% of the park was engulfed by the fire and nearly every structure was destroyed. Roughly 18,000 acres of land within the park burned.
"It's a little bit unbelievable to be here after the last 23 months," said Chris Spohrer, the California State Parks Santa Cruz District Superintendent. "It's really exciting and feels really good. This is one of those days that I'm going to enjoy the whole day."
Janet Yrigoyen visited the park on Friday, and was relieved by what she saw.
"I'm so grateful that this many trees are still here, because I didn't know. When we came, it could have been a desert, we didn't know what to expect," she said. "The trees are back. They are here. And they're growing. I'm so grateful."
Another visitor, Lonnie Hordon, was also amazed by the amount of regrowth the forest is experiencing.
"So many of these trees are still standing, and now you can see the new growth coming back on the trees. It's really fantastic to see that," he said. "Being here in the park and actually seeing them start to come back – it's really exciting."
Spohrer says the re-sprouting started about 3-4 months after the fire.
"Redwood trees have an amazing ability to regenerate. You'll see them sprouting from the base and the stem, regrowing their crowns," he said. "It's a very hopeful sign that the forest is regenerating. After seeing the changes to the forest, you start to realize that forests are not static."
The park is only open in a limited capacity right now, and reservations are required for those who wish to park. Visitors can make them up to 60 days in advance.
"We have probably, 75 miles of trails in this park. We're opening about 18 miles of the roads for trail use and we're opening another couple of miles for hiking only," Spohrer said. "We will be pushing very hard to continue to open more trails in the near future."
For additional information on the reopening of Big Basin, visit the state park's official website.
