Gazos Creek Road

Bill Bushnell — Sunday, April 4, 1993

The weather forecasters have been calling for rain on Sunday during the previous week. A few big clouds float threateningly by this morning, but it doesn’t look like there’s going to be anything more than a few showers at most.

After meeting Jude at the Palo Alto Cultural Center a few blocks from home, we head south through Palo Alto and stop at Gunn High School. I am disappointed that no other riders are waiting eagerly to join us on our excellent adventure. Maybe it’s the change to Daylight Savings Time or the weather forecast.

We continue south on Foothill Expressway. In Los Altos I flat. These Avocet tires (35mm Duro Plus) seem to be really prone to flats when the roads are wet. While I fix the flat, Jude rides on ahead to meet Rich at Grant Rd.

After fixing the flat, I continue on quickly. I told Jude to wait up with Rich at the chemical toilets in Stevens Canyon Park just past Montebello Rd. When I arrive, Jude is alone.

“Where’s Rich?”, I ask.

“He wasn’t at Grant Rd. when I got there. I got there at 9:04, so he must have given up waiting for us.”, Jude answers.

We continue up Stevens Canyon and then up Redwood Gulch and CA-9 to Saratoga Gap. When we arrive, both Brent and Rich are waiting. Because of my flat, and our slow pace, the two of them have been waiting for over a half-hour. Rich had arrived at Grant Rd. and Foothill at about 8:50 and thought we were ahead, so he rode as fast as he could and caught up with Brent near the top of the climb.

After eating a snack, we head south on CA-9 toward Big Basin. The descent down CA-9 is gradual and cold. At Waterman Gap, we peel off our cold-weather clothes and prepare for the gradual 700-foot climb along CA-236. Traffic is unusually heavy along the thickly forested mostly one-lane road.

Brent and Jude ride on ahead while Rich and I stop and get a bite to eat at the top of the climb. After catching up with Brent and Jude, who stopped a little further down the road, we enjoy the descent into Big Basin Redwoods State Park.

We stop at the store in the park for about 45 minutes and eat lunch, relax, and as Brent puts it, “count our navels.” Brent and Jude both prefer to ride at a constant moderate pace, taking shorter less frequent rests. I’m a bit erratic. I like to ride full-throttle and make frequent stops if I see something interesting along the way. I haven’t figured out yet how Rich prefers to ride. After lunch we begin Gazos Creek Rd.

Last year I wrote up my first ride down Gazos Creek Rd. This year is different because I have company and because the mountains have had about three times as much rain. From the park HQ to the outer gate, the road is in good shape. There’s a layer of gravel on the surface that makes the bikes skate sideways a bit while riding but keeps mud bogs from forming. Past the outer gate, there is no more gravel, and the soil is tacky in a few places.

Brent asks me, “So how much mud are we going to have to ride through?”

“I don’t know.”, I answer. “Last year the worst mud was along the stretch between Villa Cathay and Cloverdale Rd. We’ll have to see.”

When we arrive at Sandy Point, a ranger is sitting in his running truck watching us.

After a short break, we continue down what is the most interesting section of Gazos Creek Rd. The road descends steeply into the heavily-forested canyon that is the Gazos Creek watershed. In several places the road is cut directly into sandstone. When we cross Gazos Creek for the first time, the road becomes very muddy and slippery. Rich on his 25mm tires continues without dismounting, but the rest of us carefully walk along the borders of the mud-bog. Unfortunately, four-wheel-drive vehicles are permitted on Gazos Creek Rd. from the coast to Sandy Point, and I suspect that many of these bogs would be much smaller if the road were closed to motorized traffic.

Three times Jude, Brent, and I dismount and pick a careful path around the mud while Rich sails through. The mud is slippery but not thick, so maybe thinner tires are an asset as they would cut through to more solid soil beneath. I feel as if I’m riding on ice. At one point we pass a couple of incredulous mountain bikers as they struggle up the road. (We are all riding road bikes with drop handlebars.)

Despite the mud, the upper canyon is beautiful: large redwoods ascend skyward in the narrow canyon while the creek separated from the road by a fern-covered berm gurgles noisily a few feet away. I stop and take a couple pictures.

Soon the narrow canyon opens up and with one last steep descent we find ourselves on a paved road. It seems that Gazos Creek Rd. is now paved from the coast all the way up to the Villa Cathay. This is probably good because it means the worst of the mud can be avoided.

We continue swiftly through the lower canyon, and after passing Cloverdale Rd., we find ourselves at the coast, the noisy traffic from the coast highway marking an end to a quiet but exciting adventure in the forest.

A stiff northwest wind blows along the coast. Jude decides to take advantage of it and rides home to Felton. Brent, Rich and I continue north past Pigeon Point to Bean Hollow Rd. We press northward taking turns pulling in the face of a strong headwind for five miles, but it feels more like ten. We turn off CA-1 at Bean Hollow Rd. and continue over the hill past the flower farm and the Pescadero town dump to Pescadero Rd.

Since there are still a few segments of road on my altitude/distance map I have yet to fill in, and since I’m in a particularly anal-retentive mood, I try to get Rich and Brent to follow me out to the coast and back so I can record the mileage and climbing for that segment. Being sensible, they decline and decide to head home. I tell them that the route up Pescadero Rd. over Haskins Hill and then straight up CA-84 and down into Portola Valley and home to Los Altos and Sunnyvale is the easiest and quickest route.

I’m now on my own, so I ride out to the coast against a strong wind and then back into Pescadero. I have plenty of food and water so I continue past the town center. I turn right on Cloverdale and then left on Butano Cutoff and then right again on Pescadero Rd.

A few miles later, I come upon Dearborn Park Rd. I’ve never been up this road, so up I go. The road passes some greenhouses and deteriorates to a muddy dirt lane about 0.8 miles from Pescadero Rd. The local real estate agent is showing one of the miserable houses at the bottom of the dark, dank gully. The woods are pretty, but I wouldn’t want to live on the north side of Butano Ridge. I’d never see the sun.

I remember from the topo map a way to access the Butano Ridge Trail from Dearborn Park, but all the side roads branching off seem to go through residents’ backyards. A few other roads are posted with signs saying “NO” in great big letters and in much smaller letters underneath, a long word that I could just make out beginning with a “T”.

After taking down my readings—counting my navel—I return to Pescadero Rd. and ride to Memorial Park. After stopping for a few minutes to eat and refresh myself, I continue up Haskins Hill and then down the other side. Just before I get to CA-84, I bear right on Redwood Rd. and ride the one-lane residential road past some houses and then down by the La Honda duck pond before rejoining the main road at Entrada next to Apple Jacks.

I decide not to ride up Alpine Rd. because I suspect Brent and Rich went up CA-84, and if one of them bonked or needed assistance, I should be there to help. Also, I just don’t feel like climbing Alpine today. The ride up from La Honda is an uneventful grind. Traffic isn’t too heavy, but I am glad when I reach Old La Honda and can move onto a quieter road.

Upon reaching CA-35, I ride north a couple miles to CA-84 and descend into Woodside. At the one-way control halfway down, the light is red, so I stop for a few minutes before continuing. It’s too bad the slide wasn’t severe enough to close the road to autos as a series of such slides was on CA-9 last year between Felton and Santa Cruz. It was great to ride that section of roadway without all the traffic! Of course, that was on the weekend when the construction crews were off.

When I get to the bottom of the hill, I ride Portola Rd. to Alpine Rd. (‘round the Loop!) to Junipero Serra Blvd and Foothill Expressway and return home via Arastradero and Middlefield just after sunset.

Ride stats:

distance: 103.2 miles

climbing: 7150 feet

total time: 11:18

riding time: 7:47

average speed: 13.2

maximum speed: 36.5

index: 131

irp: 12

mirp: 17

climbing density: 70

climbing ratio: 0.0132

An article on indexing can be found here.

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