The History of Sawpit Trail, and How MBOSC is Bringing it Back
Words by Guy Lasnier
Riding the new Sawpit Trail will be a whole lot more fun than working a sawpit.
In the old days of logging in the Santa Cruz Mountains, felled redwoods were laid across a pit in the ground. Then two men would work a long, crosscut saw up and down, ripping the logs into planks for transport out of the forest in a wagon.
“Somebody had to be down in the pit,” said Bud McCrary, a lumber man and prodigious trail builder who has seen more redwoods and built more mountain trails in his 92 years than any five of us combined. “Working in a sawpit is very, very, hard difficult work.”
Creating a new Sawpit Trail will be hard work, too, but well worth it, says Drew Perkins, trails program director with Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz, who is heading up the design and construction effort.
But first, trail fans need to step up and help raise the funds for construction. MBOSC aims to raise $300,000 to not only re-create the one-time logging road in the Soquel Demonstration State Forest as a modern, advanced mountain biking trail but also maintain it and other multi-use trails in the forest over the next five years.
“We are acutely aware of what it takes to manage these spaces in an era of shrinking budgets,” said Matt De Young, MBOSC’s Executive Director. Demand for outdoor recreational opportunities continues to grow, he said, however park and land managers lack adequate resources to create new hiking and biking routes and maintain existing trails.
“As recreational trail users, we believe it’s our duty to take an active role,” De Young said. “As a community, if we want trail and bike-based recreation assets, strong public-private partnerships and investment are needed.”
Dedicated in 1990, the 2,681-acre Soquel Demonstration State Forest is one of eight demonstration forests in California managed by CAL FIRE. These unique areas provide the landscape for a mix of public uses from education to recreation to resource management.
SDSF spans steep slopes of Soquel Canyon, covered with redwoods, madrone, and tan oak. The land has a rich history of human settlement, ranging from the original Ohlone people who lived in the lower sections of the watershed to logging operations that began in the 1850s and 1860s and continued through the 20th century.
Three creeks drain the area — the East Branch of Soquel Creek, Amaya Creek, and Fern Gulch Creek.
In a history of the Forest, Thomas Sutfin, SDSF’s first forest manager, describes how logging operations progressed up the canyon, beginning in the 1850s. In the 1870s, the prominent businessman Frederick A. Hihn built a road from Olive Springs Quarry to Highland way, now known as Hihn Mill Road, and established the Sulphur Springs Resort, which operated until the 1920s. In 1863, Hihn purchased a portion of the land from the daughter of the original land grant holder and later expanded his holdings.
In the 1880s, Hihn established the Valencia-Hihn Co., Sutfin writes, and began planning a rail line to his timberland holdings in the area. Hihn wasn’t able to secure financing for the rail line and so his crews, beginning in the late 1880s, selectively felled timber in what is now the Forest.
He established a small mill where the SDSF main parking lot is today, off Highland Way. Fellers dropped the best trees and then piece workers would turn the logs into “split stuff” — fence posts, rails, grape stakes, and rough planks, Sutfin writes. The operation was significantly smaller than in other parts of the Santa Cruz Mountains because of the narrow, rough roads, and steep terrain.
After Hihn’s death in 1913, his heirs continued small logging operations but in 1924 sold about 6,000 acres in the Soquel Canyon to the Monterey Bay Redwood Co. From 1926 to 1942, the company clear cut the forest, moving up the canyon and removing approximately 100 million board feet of lumber, mostly redwood, some of the last stands of old-growth redwood, according to Sutfin’s history.
Logs were hauled with cable systems to Hihn Mill Road (then called Sulphur Springs Road) then brought to a steam-powered mill below the junction of Hinkley Creek. In about 1934, crawler tractors were used to carve secondary haul roads and spur roads in the Forest. The current Tractor Trail marks the beginning of the tractor logging period.
Ad hoc recreation — hiking, dirt biking, horseback riding, and mountain biking — have also taken place on the land over the years.
“Recreation has alway been part of the goals of State Forests,” said Sutfin, who served as forest manager for 19 years. State Forests, as opposed to state parks, host a variety of uses, including forestry education, forestry research, timber harvesting, and recreation, he said. “The challenge is to achieve a balance of all the uses.”
The current Sawpit Trail is one of the original trails opened for public access and has a special place in the hearts of many trail users. Sutfin said that when the forest became public land, he and assistant forest manager Rich Elliott began laying out public trails based on existing logging roads and skid trails. Elliott discovered what was believed to be an old sawpit near the trail and the name stuck.
Logging, or timber harvesting, continues to be a key use for demonstration forests with the goal of demonstrating responsible timber harvesting, Sutfin said. And it is hoped that revenue from harvesting can eventually cover operating costs.
In 2017, CAL FIRE began the Meridian timber harvest where Sawpit passes through, and the historic logging road was restored and upgraded. That harvest is complete now and the area is not scheduled to be re-entered for at least 10 years. CAL FIRE has partnered with Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz to recreate Sawpit Trail as a narrow, technical, hand-built single track with a natural character.
The attributes of a good timber harvest road are different from a good mountain biking trail. The new route will reduce maintenance needs and environmental impact by using sustainable trail construction techniques while still being fun to ride, Perkins said.
MBOSC has worked in the Demonstration Forest for many years. The group built and maintains the Flow Trail, a sweeping, banked cruiser trail that follows (more or less) the old Tractor Trail.
Perkins has been out at Sawpit recently working with CAL FIRE’s Colin Noyes to refine the route, choosing the line and where new features will be to ensure the trail is sustainable. Actual trail construction will be done both by machine and hand labor. Perkins will lead MBOSC’s professional trail crew along with the hundreds of dedicated volunteers who regularly pitch in to work on MBOSC trail projects.
“We want to keep the character of the old trail as much as possible,” Perkins said, “make it a natural experience, definitely more advanced, with some steep sections and rock armoring in places.” He said several small bridges will be built using mostly locally sourced lumber.
Perkins learned the art of trail building from McCrary, the master, who recreated the Ridge Trail — an old Jeep road along the Demo Forest ridge top years ago using his 22-horse-power trail machine. “It’s got a four-foot blade in the front and a back hoe,” McCrary said. “You can get quite a bit done with it.” Nearly 93 now, McCrary said he still gets on the 60-plus-year-old machine occasionally.
Ridge Trail is just one of hundreds of miles of trails McCrary has built. Emma McCrary Trail in Pogonip is named for his late wife, an avid horsewoman, who passed away in 2011. “Emma was the instigator, she kept me going,” McCrary said. “She’d get approvals and then get me out there.”
MBOSC partnered with the City of Santa Cruz to build the Emma McCrary Trail and Perkins was hired to lead the effort. After it opened in 2013, Perkins became MBOSC’s first employee and supervised the design and construction of the SDSF Flow Trail.
In the current budget climate, private funding and volunteer organizations such as Stewards of Soquel Forest and Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz are vital resources in helping CAL FIRE and other land managers build and maintain trails and keep lands open for recreation.
"The Sawpit reroute will only happen if the community decides it wants it and steps up to fund it," De Young said. No public funding has been identified.
“Now is the time to step up,” De Young said. If funding comes through and construction goes as planned, the new Sawpit Trail will be ready to ride next spring. Several weekend Dig Days’ and even some midweek work between Christmas and New Years are envisioned to get the work done.
Like this story? Want to contribute to the Trees, Trails, and the Return of Sawpit fundraiser? Click the button below to donate now.
Guy Lasnier is a longtime supporter of MBOSC both with a shovel and a keyboard. Guy has a strong background in writing and editing, and he provides MBOSC with guidance in developing great stories while working with the media, publications, and radio.
