California's Big Basin Redwoods State Park to add hundreds of acres

The recent purchase of two properties in the Santa Cruz mountains, combined with other land, is expected to add nearly 200 acres of land to Big Basin Redwoods State Park.

The two recently purchased properties add up to 10 acres and are located in the Saddle Mountain area, which is adjacent to the park's eastern edge. The land was purchased by local nonprofit Sempervirens Fund, which said in a news release Friday that it hopes to connect it with 184 acres of protected land for a total of 194 additional acres that the nonprofit expects will be added to Big Basin.

The expansion comes at what the nonprofit called a "critical" time in Big Basin's recovery from the 2020 CZU Lightning Comples fires, which burned over 85,000 acres of land in the Santa Cruz Mountains and devastated large swaths of ecosystems within the park.

Big Basin's restoration process includes rebuilding and relocating several pieces of infrastructure within the park; facilities like a welcome center and employee housing will likely be built on the combined Saddle Mountain properties, according to the nonprofit's news release. A new entrance to the park is planned on the added land, so that new visitor facilities will be located away from the park's recovering old-growth redwood forests. The new properties are "sparsely forested with second growth redwoods and hardwoods," according to the news release.

"We're thrilled to be able to expand protected land in the Saddle Mountain Conservation Area and look forward to State Parks acquiring the 200 acres to secure the new entrance to Big Basin," Sara Barth, executive director of Sempervirens Fund, said in the news release. "A big takeaway from the Reimagining Big Basin process was that we need to relocate critical park infrastructure away from the old-growth forests, and this land is the perfect site to make that vision a reality."

Sempervirens Fund paid $845,000 for the two properties with the help of a local foundation and individual donors.