the nature-worshiping, fun-loving adventurer’s guide

California State Parks

California State Parks Backpacking Adventures 2023!

This is a great opportunity for a guided outdoor experience.

Robert Louis Stevenson’s California

Although he only spent one year here, it is difficult to gauge which made more of an impression on the other, California on Stevenson or he on the state.

Google Trekker Captures California State Parks

Many of the California state parks Google has photographed with its Street View Trekker, including Point Lobos State Reserve, are in or around Big Sur.

The latest Google team isn’t in Silicon Valley. You’re more likely to spot them wearing hiking boots and backpacks equipped with soccer ball-shaped technological contraptions.

Castle Rock Visitor Center Gets Green Light

Reed Holderman of Sempervirens Fund displays an artist's rendering of the new Castle Rock entryway. Mike Kahn photo.

The Santa Cruz Board of Supervisors unanimously approved Sempervirens Fund's proposal for a new LEED-certified visitors center for Castle Rock State Park.

Happy Birthday Yosemite

A short, steep saunter up the Mist Trail leads to this less-famous vantage of Half Dome. Hilltromper photo.

The nation's first park still blows our little minds.

Yosemite, The First California State Park

President Roosevelt and John Muir at Glacier Point in 1903. Their impromptu three-day camping trip led to the federal government taking back Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove from the state of California. National Park Service Historic Photo.

On the 150th anniversary of California State Parks, a look back at Yosemite—the place it all began and the one that got away.

Ten Reasons to Love The Castro Adobe

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The two-story Castro Adobe is considered a stellar example of Monterey Colonial architecture.

It's our newest park, and it's rad.

Teaching Kids About Science via PORTS

PORTS instructor Vonnie Lempke, right, delivers a videoconferenced lesson about butterflies to a second-grade classroom from a makeshift studio at Seacliff State Beach. The "L" and "R" signs help Lempke, standing off-camera, navigate the green screen as a TV meteorologist does.

With support from Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks and other nonprofits, the award-winning PORTS program helps California students learn science via distance learning.

A Revamp for Castle Rock

Plans for the new entrance area at Castle Rock State Park. It lies 800 feet northwest of the current park entrance. B

Hearings are set to begin on plans to spruce up a beloved Santa Cruz Mountains park once slated for closure.

For State Parks, A Whole New Direction

"We are an aging white movement," one speaker told the audience at the Sept. 9 Parks Forward workshop in Santa Cruz, intended to gather ideas for updating state parks. Photo by Hilltromper.

Suggestions for revamping California State Parks poured in at the first workshop of the Parks Forward commission—including some that would have been unthinkable a few years ago.

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California State Parks