ALONG THE SAN LORENZO CANYON

A September 6, 1884 Pacific Rural Press article provided a vivid description of coming up from Santa Cruz, through the spectacular San Lorenzo Canyon, to picnic at Big Trees Grove. 

Author's Personal Collection

"To see trees in their perfection, we like to go picnicing at Big Trees Grove once or twice during the summer. This grove is about five miles from Santa Cruz, and you drive but a short distance before beautiful forest trees over shadow your way; you pass the Powder Works, with its two settlements in the valley, and the rather imposing house of the superintendent, perched fo[r] safety on its little mountain, where it can be seen for miles away.  Much has been said of the grandeur of the scenery beyond here, as viewed from the narrow gauge railroad; but traveling in the cars, darting in and out of tunnels, and scurrying along the canyon, you cannot begin to know the almost terrifying delight it is to drive up along the shelf of the mountain, eighty or a hundred feet above the engine’s track, and feel for one-half hour, that in comparison to the scale of nature here, you are not much more than the little China toy sheep-herders riding in a tin chariot on your mantlepiece. 

Santa Cruz Sentinel, August 20, 2000 (Carolyn Swift)

The deep and narrow glens on one side of you down which you look for a glimpse of the San Lorenzo, make you almost catch your breath – such a precipitous descent it is. Immense trees take their root down there but you have to look up toward the sky to see their tops. At last you reach the Big Tree Grove, and the climax in trees for this forest. And where, in the whole world, will you find a more lovely picnic ground?

Harrison Camp by Carleton Watkins, circa 1870.  

 J. Paul Getty Open Content Program

It is not only the forest giants that are attractive, but their setting of small trees and undergrowth - fern, brush, and brier. Rustic comfort, and a dinner in the open air is a good thing to take, if you have left all worry at home, and only brought along a happy heart."