An all-new trail system is built and ready to open in the newest unit of the California Coastal National Monument near Santa Cruz, CA. The Cotoni-Coast Dairies (CCD) will soon offer extended backcountry rides thanks to new long-distance trails being added to the greater Santa Cruz trail system.
It can take a long time for public land projects to come to fruition, and that was definitely the case with CCD. Conservationists originally purchased this parcel of land back in 1998 to protect it from development. In 2014, it was transferred to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and in 2017, President Barack Obama designated it as a unit of the California Coastal National Monument.
This pristine property is now protected in perpetuity
This 5,800-acre swath of coastal landscape “is unreal,” said Matt De Young, Executive Director of the Santa Cruz Mountains Trail Stewardship (SCMTS). “It’s one of the largest intact properties in the Santa Cruz Mountains. So it does have a lot of ecological value. It has wildlife connectivity from migration routes and connecting different ecosystems together.”
“The views are unparalleled — it rivals Big Sur. So it really is a stunning property,” De Young continued. The hills rise directly from the coastline, so “you can see whales breaching from 1,200 feet of elevation.”
“We’ve got everything from coastal prairie to oak woodlands to chaparral to redwood riparian areas as well. So it really does have a diversity of experiences out there.”
Recreation access has always been planned for the monument
Public trail access to CCD has been planned from the beginning, but no historic trails existed on the property. So, SCMTS was contracted to design and build the trail system at CCD. The lack of existing trails gave them a blank slate to work with, so they could craft a trail system to serve all of the various user groups, including mountain bikers, hikers and runners, and horseback riders.
SCMTS is a professional trail building and advocacy organization founded in 1997. Today, the org boasts 25 full-time staff members, and also rallies legions of locals to conduct volunteer trail work. Despite being founded by mountain bikers, the organization now builds trails for all trail users.
At CCD, SCMTS has built 19 miles of singletrack for Phase 1 of the project. Nine of those miles of trails are open to mountain bikers and shared with hikers. The other 10 miles in Phase 1 are only open to horses and hikers. In addition to paid builders, over 10,000 volunteer hours have already been invested in the project.
To separate the two user groups, the trails have been built as two distinct networks on opposite ends of CCD. The horse and hiker network is located in the south, and the mountain biking and hiking network is in the north. The middle of CCD will remain wild and undeveloped, accommodating the aforementioned migratory patterns.
Phase 2 calls for an additional eight miles of singletrack to be built, with some (but not all) of that mileage open to mountain bikes. “Part of Phase 2 will include more bike access and likely more bike-optimized access,” said De Young.
Backcountry-style mountain biking comes to Santa Cruz
Mountain biking in Santa Cruz has “been more focused on riding short, technical trails,” in recent years, according to De Young. The new trails built at CCD are an entirely different flavor — they’ve been designed as multi-use, backcountry-style singletrack trails. “I think this is going to help maybe swing back to some of the roots of mountain biking — to getting out to see some country, go for an adventure, rather than just focused on like that technical trail experience.”
The nine miles of mountain bike-legal trails have been constructed as a stacked-loop trail system, with easier machine-built loops close to the trailhead and more difficult, hand-cut singletrack loops as you get farther out.
“That second loop crosses a very steep canyon,” said De Young. “This property is unique. It’s coastal terraces. It used to be the beach, and as the ocean receded, we got these very flat terraces punctuated by extremely steep terrain. So that creates some interesting design and build challenges. That second loop crosses a very steep canyon. And being as such, the character of the trail is more challenging. We’ve got narrow, hand-cut singletrack trail with some challenging, steep sections and rocky texture.”
The third loop climbs to the highest point on the property and is also quite technical. It’s “very narrow, very exposed, some rocky sections and whatnot too,” said De Young.
Connectivity to the San Vicente Redwoods adds dramatically more mileage
The third loop connects to the San Vicente Redwoods, where SCMTS is building more singletrack. There’s currently about 11 miles of singletrack on San Vicente’s 7,000 acres — two of which were historic trails and nine of which SCMTS built in a Phase 1 trail development that opened in 2023. In total, SCMTS is in the process of building about 50 miles of singletrack across these two massive parcels of land.
“Long term, when it’s connected up, it’s going to offer opportunities for some big backcountry rides, which we don’t have much of here,” said De Young. “A lot of our trail networks are pretty small areas and kind of loop back on themselves.”
CCD and San Vicente both connect to a coastal bike path, which provides car-free access to nearby Wilder Ranch State Park — currently one of the largest legal trail systems in Santa Cruz. By connecting Wilder with CCD and San Vicente, local riders will soon be able to craft routes of epic proportions!
Funding and timeline
Since CCD was added to the existing California Coastal National Monument and was not designated as a new monument, no funding was allocated for the development of these trails.
So SCMTS is funding the development themselves — to the tune of $6 million. In addition to funding the construction, SCMTS also established a cooperative agreement with the BLM for planning, construction, and ongoing maintenance of the CCD trails.
As a part of that cooperative agreement, 10% of the construction costs are being provided by the BLM. But “beyond that, we’re going out to other granting agencies, foundations, corporations, and also a lot of private individual funding is getting these trails built,” said De Young.
Construction began at CCD back in 2021, and Phase 1 was originally planned to open in 2022, but hang-ups connected to a public appeal delayed the opening. Thankfully, “that’s now resolved.” Once the BLM builds a trailhead parking lot, this new trail system is ready to open. “They can’t begin construction until April, but then they’ll hit the ground there, and we’ll build the parking lot and connect up the trails and be able to open this summer, is the current plan.”
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