Just south of Santa Cruz is a small pocket of a park known as Byrne-Milliron Forest. Its 402 acres is managed by the Santa Cruz Land Trust as both a working forest and public park. It won’t take you very long to hike all the trails in this park – a quick glance through the park map only shows about 7.5 miles of trails. But we thought it would be a fun place to explore before meeting friends for lunch.

Trip Report

Byrne-Milliron appealed to me in many ways. First, as a park managed by a small local organization outside of the typical land managers, it’s a bit off the radar and I hoped to find somewhere peaceful and uncrowded. Second, it is dog friendly. Even off-leash dog friendly!

The drive to the trailhead takes 15-20 minutes from highway 1, and the park is not well labeled from any road. You’re about 3/4 of a mile down a one-way road that wiggles up into the redwood forest before discovering the first signage. Nice wooden signs and bird sculptures welcome you to the forest, and the trailhead is even marked by a friendly tree that sets the tone for the whimsical park.

We pulled in at 8:30 am on a Saturday of a holiday weekend and found the parking lot empty. Exactly what I was looking for! We let Thor out of the truck and he took off with the zoomies around the empty lot, clearly saying “hurry up guys! Lets hike lets hike lets hike!”. Thor likes to hike!

At the trailhead, I grabbed a map and we started down the fire-road Byrne trail. We had no route in mind, we just figured we’d walk for a while and see what we could.

Trails weren’t all labeled, but most main junctions had nice wooden signs and more whimsical decor. Several water jugs and water bowls for dogs were at the various junctions and viewpoints, though we didn’t use them since we had our own.

About a mile in, a local couple came along with their friendly lab. The dogs played while we walked with them for a while, and we got advice on a route to take. At the end of the Byrne Trail loop, which had been climbing gently, we took off up the Ridge Top trail and finally got the hearts pumping. Steep and narrow, this trail took us through the dripping redwood forest up to a viewpoint overlooking Monterey Bay. Too bad it was foggy! Still, we enjoyed the benches and the mailbox full of trinkets and notes.

Next, we headed down to the Great White Loop. This lollipop loop visits a 1000 year old, 250 ft tall redwood known as “Great White” since it is so sunbleached. Thor for scale!

Finally, we reconnected back to the Byrne Trail and followed it back to the trailhead. We probably hiked 80% of the trail in the park and my GPS read 5.0 miles exactly. You won’t get a long deathmarch of a hike in this park, but it is a perfect spot for a couple of peaceful hours among the redwoods.

Map and GPS Track