Treasures: Rodeo Gulch

I live in paradise (sorry to brag). People may not frolic naked (I count that as a blessing, actually) and we may lack fruit trees outside the window; perhaps the temperatures we have in the summer are not always paradisiacal and the fumes from fires encouraged by drought do not please aesthetic sensibility, but Northern California is quite the country and Santa Cruz county is bursting with many of the wonders of nature. If it is mountains one desires, and ours are too small, we are just several windy roads away from the Sierra Nevada range (and Tahoe!! and Yosemite!!). Redwoods? Check. Madrones? Ah yaz. Pines? Yup. Firs? Really . . . yes. Lighthouses? Harbors? Grassland? Farms? Sweeping views? Uh-huh.

Driving home from my summer school class in Aptos today, I decided to take a scenic route, or a severe detour, up Rodeo Gulch. I had not been up that road since last summer and knew it was a fairly peaceful road, and oh, absolutely gorgeous. Apparently I had forgotten how gorgeous. To ye Santa Cruz County dwellers, take a detour someday, sooner than later; it is not a sight to have missed. Take it slow. To ye other Northern Cali friends, stop by, I’ll give you a tour. Anyone and everyone else, come visit for some time, there is so much to see. Bring your bike and walking shoes, these things are better taken in gradually, not flown by. Do not drive the speed limit; 35 mph is too fast to see much of anything.

Rodeo Gulch meanders off of Soquel Drive (busy mania central) and rolls through small, open fields past trees and wildflowers. It is a sparsely populated area of old Soquel, rather undisturbed. The road climbs up switchbacks to the ridge from which one can see the waves of trees tumbling out to mingle with the distant blue of the ocean, bleeding moisture into the dallying departure of fog. From leaving the oak framed vista (and leaving out 99.9 percent of the description before and after the named point) and climbing several turns, the road drops a hairpin and many bouncing curves to a choice: Laurel Glen or Mountain View. Laurel Glen eventually dumps off onto Soquel San Jose Road, which, although a beautiful route, is out of the way. But Mountain View is fabulous also. The trees, the ferns, the stream, oh, everything, everything is awe striking. There is that rich, dark soil on the steep hillside dancing with redwoods and peaking through the yellow grass on the opposing gentle slope. All the descriptions I could muster for the remainder of Mountain View and Branciforte would sound strikingly similar: dark soil, redwoods, mountains painted with green, always green, trees in the near distance with a gently rolling meadow, yellow with grass that will become brown, then green, then watercolor, every year, in the foreground, spotted with oaks, firs, and redwood groves. But it is not all the same. Any film would fail to capture the angles and lighting, and it is not the incompetency of the artists (I did recognize the big tree forests and the clip from Tikal in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi), but nature in its moment portrayed on a screen or on special paper is not, will never be, the same as standing in the spot and realizing, my eyes, all my combined senses, are overwhelmed, in love, and selfishly insatiable.

Folks—it is beautiful. I know that word is overused. And what is crazy is this is, for the main part, new growth. The whole darn place was clear-cut. Gone. That was a bit of a reminder for me: I need to prune myself, or let myself be pruned, to make a millionth a step toward growth. Yes, clear-cutting is extreme, try selective cutting. Just as it is good to let the forest burn periodically, I need to get burned. Otherwise dead, useless bits crop up along the forest floor, little silly things I am unwilling to properly deal with—fears, grudges, dreams deferred—and then when the fire comes through, it is not simply a healthy cleaning, but a devastating burn.