If you have lived in the San Lorenzo Valley for more than a few years, your mental picture of Big Basin Redwoods State Park probably froze somewhere around 2022. Highway 236 reopened to cars. The main day-use area took reservations again. You could walk part of the Redwood Loop Trail, look at the blackened trunks, and leave. That was Big Basin for a while: a place you visited once to see the damage, then didn't think about again.
That picture is out of date now, and not by a little. Over the past twelve months, two separate things happened at the park that changed what a Saturday there actually looks like. Trail crews connected fragments into loops instead of dead ends. And the shuttle system that makes the parking problem bearable came back for the season. Neither change made headlines outside the valley, but together they turned Big Basin from a curiosity into something closer to what it used to be: a place you plan a real hike around.
Why the old loops didn't work
The scale of what burned explains why "partial reopening" meant so little for so long. The CZU Lightning Complex Fire in August 2020 burned inside 97 percent of the park's footprint, more than 17,700 of its roughly 18,200 acres, and damaged nearly all of its structures along with every campground and trail network. When day-use access resumed in July 2022, it resumed onto a skeleton. You could walk short, isolated stretches near the historic core, but the connective tissue between them, the roads and cutoffs that turn a there-and-back walk into an actual loop, mostly weren't safe to use yet.
That is the detail that gets lost in the "Big Basin is reopening" headlines: reopening a trail segment and reopening a loop are different projects. A segment gets you a walk. A loop gets you a hike people plan a morning around.
The 1.2 miles that changed the geometry
In late 2025, that changed. A 1.2-mile stretch of the Skyline to the Sea Trail reconnected the Redwood Loop Trail to Middle Ridge Road and linked back up with Sunset Trail, according to a November 2025 update from the San Lorenzo Valley Post. That single connector matters more than its length suggests, because it turned two previously separate fragments into one continuous route near the park's historic core. Park staff told the Post they expected another 3.5 miles of trail to reopen by the end of that year, which would extend the loop options further.
Independent reporting backs up that this is a real trend and not a one-off announcement. Bay Nature's on-the-ground account from June 2026 put the current total at about 17 of the park's historic 85 miles of trail open to the public, a fraction that has been climbing steadily as conservation corps crews clear vegetation, fell hazard trees, and rebuild trail beds. The park's own numbers run slightly higher, with a May 2026 release from California State Parks citing more than 20 miles of restored trail. Either figure tells the same story: this is no longer a park with three short walks near a parking lot. It has an actual, if still limited, network.
The loop worth doing right now
If you want the single best evidence that Big Basin has crossed a threshold, it is the Sequoia Trail. The 2.9-mile trail leads to Sempervirens Falls, a 20-foot cascade that had been effectively unreachable for most of the years since the fire. Combine it with 1.4 miles of the Skyline to the Sea Trail and you get a 4.3-mile loop starting and ending at the main day-use area, through recovering redwood forest the whole way.
That loop did not exist in this form a few seasons ago. It exists now because trail crews prioritized reconnecting exactly this kind of route, one that starts where visitors park and returns them to the same spot, rather than leaving hikers to backtrack the way they came.
Getting there has also changed
The trail network isn't the only thing that came back this year. On May 23, 2026, California State Parks and Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks brought back the shuttle program for summer weekends and holidays, running from an interim overflow parking area at Saddle Mountain, at the intersection of Highway 236 and Little Basin Road, to the main day-use area near the historic core. For a park where day-use parking fills fast, that shuttle is the difference between a wasted drive and an actual hike.
There is also a lower-cost option most visitors overlook. Santa Cruz Metro runs weekend bus service to the park on Route 35 during summer months, and no entrance fee or parking reservation is required for anyone who arrives that way.
Here is how the main options stack up right now:
| Getting in | Cost | When it runs | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reserved parking, main day-use area | $6 plus $2 reservation fee | Book online ahead of your visit | Spaces are limited and go fast on weekends |
| Drive-up parking, no reservation | $10 per vehicle | Only if spots remain | Not guaranteed, especially in summer |
| Saddle Mountain shuttle | Free shuttle ride | Summer weekends and holidays, Memorial Day through Labor Day | Seasonal only, and you still need to get to Saddle Mountain |
| Santa Cruz Metro Route 35 | No entrance fee | Weekends, summer months | Limited schedule |
| Rideshare or taxi | Varies | Not recommended | No cell service near the entrance kiosk to arrange a pickup |
That last row is worth taking seriously. The park's own guidance warns that there is no cell phone service near the entrance kiosk, and that people who count on Uber or a car-share app to get home have ended up stranded because they couldn't activate the app or call for a ride. If you're planning a visit that depends on a rideshare pickup, plan a different way home.
What still isn't back
None of this means Big Basin is fully restored, and it's worth being honest about the gap. Every campground within the main park remains closed. The only camping currently available anywhere in the park is an interim walk-in and bike-in setup at Rancho del Oso, the coastal unit off Highway 1 near Davenport, which is a separate entrance from the redwood core most valley residents think of as "Big Basin."
The rebuild timeline reflects how much work remains. California State Parks approved a Facilities Management Plan and General Plan Amendment for the park in the summer of 2026, the document that will guide the phased design and construction of permanent trails, campgrounds, and utilities. The state's own release on the shuttle program says full reopening will take several years even with planning now underway.
Why this is the part locals should update
More than 230,000 people have visited Big Basin since that first partial reopening in July 2022, according to the park's May 2026 numbers. That is not a trickle of curiosity seekers checking on fire damage. That is a real, sustained visitor base, and it has grown alongside the trail network rather than in spite of a static one.
For anyone in Boulder Creek, Ben Lomond, or Felton, Big Basin has always been the anchor outdoor space for the whole valley, the place people default to when they want redwoods without driving to Big Sur. For a few years, that default came with an asterisk. It doesn't anymore, not in the same way. The loops are still shorter than they used to be, and the campgrounds are still gone. But the difference between "some segments are open" and "you can actually loop a hike from the day-use area to a waterfall and back" is the difference between a curiosity and a habit. That shift happened quietly, over the last year, and it's worth updating your own mental map to match it.
If you're already weighing a move within the valley, or just want someone who tracks these kinds of local shifts as closely as the trail updates, Ryan Fontana has spent years watching how the San Lorenzo Valley actually lives day to day, not just how it looks on paper. Reach out anytime you want a local read on what's changing here.