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Logging Trucks in Butano Park?
 
by Lennie Roberts

Picture yourself on a fine autumn day hiking along the Butano Fire Trail high up in Butano State Park near Pescadero. As you climb the ridge, you enjoy sweeping views of coast and forested valleys, appreciate the shade of towering old growth redwoods and savor the vast silence broken only by the wind.

Suddenly, your reverie is rudely interrupted. A huge lumber truck, loaded with logs, looms into view from around the bend. You jump out of harm’s way just in time. The truck groans by, leaving in its wake a shattered sense of peace and sanctuary.

“Wait a minute! There is something wrong with this picture,” you mutter. “I’m in a State Park. Where did these logs come from, and how can these enormous trucks be using a park road?”

The unsatisfactory answer lies in an arcane little known provision of State law. California State Parks must allow “access” through a park if there is no “reasonable” alternative access through adjacent properties. Typically, this provision applies to a homeowner that has no access except through a park, but unfortunately this provision is so broad it even allows commercial operations such as hauling logs from timber operations.

Ainsley Timber Harvest
Recently California Division of Forestry (now called CalFire) approved a timber harvest plan for a 171-acre harvest on a portion of the 960-acre Ainsley Forest LLC land in the headwaters of Gazos Creek. The plan allows hauling logs on the unimproved narrow Butano Fire Trail through Butano State Park. Although hauling is only allowed after September 15 to avoid the nesting season for marbled murrelets, the commercial use of the Fire Trail will still impact other park resources as well as the enjoyment of hikers, bicyclists, and horse riders.

CGF objected to the use of the Butano Fire Trail for hauling the logs, but CalFire overruled our objections. There are alternatives to using this rustic road. One is to take the Butano Fire Trail east into Santa Cruz County instead of west into the heart of the park. Another alternative is to helicopter the logs out of the harvest area to an area where trucks can be loaded outside the park entirely. CGF is still working to convince State Parks and CalFire to adopt one of these alternatives, especially since it is likely the owners of the Ainsley property will want to log other areas of their property in the future.

History of Butano Fire Trail
I became curious as to whether Butano Fire Trail was ever declared a “public road,” and whether Ainsley had any easements or rights of access through the park beyond the state law providing access to landlocked property owners. Archival records at the San Mateo County Public Works Department indicates the road, known historically as the “Pescadero and Big Basin Road” was never declared a public road.

Original plans for the road began in 1901, when a number of property owners petitioned the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors to “view, survey, lay out, construct, and maintain” a new public road from what is now Cloverdale Road to the Santa Cruz County line near Big Basin State Park. The reason for the road was the need to transport produce from Pescadero into Santa Cruz County.

San Mateo County government was responsive! Within a month, three “viewers” were appointed to survey and establish the route, which had no more than a 7% grade, but consequently, the route had many sharp twists and turns. In the fall of 1902, W. B. Gilbert, the acting County Surveyor, and Viewers George P. Ellis and J.L.M. Moore, presented a report with a detailed survey map to the Board of Supervisors.

The surveyor’s report concluded that in addition to providing new markets for Pescadero’s produce, the road would make it cheaper and easier for Santa Cruz County to market lumber products in San Mateo County. Big Basin State Park — the state’s first — had just been established, so the road was also seen as a way of “bringing a great many visitors and tourists to our County on their way to that great California attraction.”

Although the report concluded the road was “an absolute necessity,” nothing more happened until 1916 when the Board of Supervisors pushed the State Engineer to adopt the route, offering $10,000 to help construct the road, and also offering to maintain it. Apparently the State had other priorities for highway funds and by 1924, the San Mateo leaders found themselves fighting a losing battle. The final blow came when the Trustees of Redwood Park (which Big Basin was called at the time) preferred another route in Santa Cruz County, and without their support, San Mateo’s legislators were powerless to change the routing.

The Butano Fire Trail Today
The detailed records at the San Mateo Public Works Department end with this impasse. Yet sometime, somehow, the road was built, but only as an unpaved, narrow private fire road, and not for the glorious trade route originally envisioned. Today, there is a patchwork of public and private owners that use the road for access. The gate at Cloverdale Road has 18 different padlocks. Public use of the road is limited to hiking, bicycling, and horseback riding. Private owners have no legal documents confirming their rights, but as with many back-country roads, there are informal reciprocal agreements among owners who cross each others property.

So this fall, if you are planning a hike or ride through the area, watch out for loaded logging trucks — unless we are able to prevail in our efforts to keep the trucks out of Butano.

Published Summer 2007 in Green Footnotes.

Page last updated August 22, 2007.