Purisima Creek Redwoods
Open Space Preserve
Directions: From the junction of CA 1 and CA 92 in Half Moon Bay, drive south on Highway 1 for 1.2 miles, then turn east onto Higgins Canyon Road (formerly Higgins-Purisima Road). Drive on this narrow road about 4.2 miles, to the trailhead on the left side of the road (just past the tiny white bridge).
Parking Fee: None
Facilities: one outhouse
The little white bridge by the parking lot
Cars parked out on the road
The trailhead
Hiking up the Purisima Creek Trail
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Along the Soda Gulch Trail
Looking up through some redwoods
Looping back on the Bay Area Ridge Trail
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Of butterflies and bees!
A neat tree
View out to the coast
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Another neat tree
View out to the coast
Friendly butterfly!
Hiking down the Wittemore Gulch Trail
Bright green canopy of trees
Rock outcrop nearing the end of the hike
On Saturday, 23-June-2007, I joined in with the “Let’s hike and maybe take a break if we get tired” meetup.com hiking group for a hike at Purisima.
The Route: Purisima Creek Trail -> Soda Gulch Trail -> Bay Area Ridge Trail -> North Ridge Trail -> Whittemore Gulch Trail -> end
National Geographic TOPO! software website:
GPS Stats
Distance hiked: 7.8 miles
Total ascent: 1527 ft
Trailhead Elevation: 419 ft
Max Elevation: 1784 ft
Moving time: 2 hrs 33 min
Moving Average: 3.1 mph
Overall average: 2.0 mph
Time stopped: 1 hrs 25 min
Personal stats
Dates Hiked:
23-Jun-2007
Start time: ~ 10:00 AM
Weather: Clear and sunny. Temperatures were in the mid 70’s for the hike.
Water consumed: 1.0 liter
plus 600 ml Gatorade
Finish time: ~ 2:00 PM
Total time: ~ 4 hours
Beauty: Redwood forests, gentle streams and some coastal views!
Wildlife seen: Mostly just butterflies.
Difficulty: This hike was mostly easy for me and should be fine for anyone who is not a couch potato or suffering from heart disease. There were a couple of spots though that were tougher and climbing 1500 feet over the hike is still a good workout.
I’m still trying to experience as many Bay Area parks and trails as I can and I had never been to Purisima so when Maura at the “Let’s hike and maybe take a break if we get tired” meetup.com hiking group announced this hike, I quickly joined in. Maura plans popular hikes and they tend to fill up fast so you need to jump on them quick.
This hike started at the Higgins Canyon Road/Purisma Creek Road entrance near Half Moon Bay. This entrance has a small parking lot but fortunately there is room along the road for overflow parking and we needed it as I think there were around 30 people there for the hike.
As usual Maura divided us into smaller groups and I joined one led by a fellow named Chris and who is an assistant organizer with Maura. Our little group had 5 people in it and we took off along with everyone else on the Purisima Creek Trail. This trail presents a comparatively gentle but continuous grade up the hill that should not present a problem for healthy people.
As we hiked along though there were some mildly steeper areas though including one brief stretch on the North Ridge Trail that instantly reminded me of the Short Cut at Henry Coe, except that it quickly topped out. I don’t know, I really must be getting old as I felt that short climb. The younger hikers there didn’t even notice it.
Otherwise the hike proceeded smoothly through some pretty redwood forests and broke out into some ridge areas where we had clear views out to the coast.
We didn’t see much in the way of wildlife. The notable exception though was butterflies. There were quite a few of them fluttering around and they had no qualms about landing on us. I had two land on my left arm at the same time and really, they are quite beautiful close up like that!
Otherwise going the way we did had us descending through some steeper but switched back sections of the Whittemore Gulch Trail that would have been a tougher climb if we had hiked the loop in reverse. After that though, the trail settled in to a gentle descent much like the climb up on the Purisima Creek Trail and before we knew it, we were back at the parking lot and the hike was over with one more park hiked and in the bag!
