Published in the July 9-23, 2014 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Mike Monroe
Mike Monroe
A redwood forest is one of nature’s most remarkable expressions of beauty, diversity and productivity. Just looking up at a mature redwood imparts a sense of humility and wonder as we absorb the immensity of these amazing trees. Amazing especially since most of the Mt. Madonna area was logged from the 1850s until the early 1900s. The ability of the forest to regenerate reminds me of Shel Silverstein’s childrens story “The Giving Tree,” except with a happier and more hopeful conclusion.
Prior to European contact with our local Ohlone peoples, one shoulder of Mt. Madonna served as a crossing point for the Amah Mutsun as they traveled and traded with their neighbors at the coast. The trail probably followed Redwood Retreat Road and Old Mt. Madonna Road over the summit into Corralitos in Santa Cruz County. On Sunday Oct. 15, 1769, the Portola expedition passing by Corralitos noted for the first time a tree they had never before observed — “they were the largest, highest, and straightest trees that we had ever seen and some were four or five yards in diameter with wood of dull, dark reddish color” — according to Miguel Costanso in his diary.
The Spanish missionaries did some construction with redwoods but it was not until the Gold Rush of 1849 that lumbering began in earnest. Of an original redwood belt that extended from the Big Sur area up the coast to southern Oregon, an area of about 2 million acres, almost 95 percent of the old redwoods were cut for buildings, grape stakes and fencing. Bodfish Creek near Sprig was the home of a lumber mill first operated in the 1850s by the Bodfish boys, then Mr. Hanna of Gilroy and finally the company of Whitehurst and Hodges. When Henry Miller started purchasing parts of the Las Animas and Salsipuedes Ranchos, which included Mt. Madonna in the 1860s, he was also dealing with Hiram Wentworth of Watsonville who was a poet and lumberman.
Our visit to the Sprig section of Mt. Madonna will not have us climbing any steep trails but if anyone would like to hike to the top after our formal get together then I will head up the Ridge Trail to Henry Miller’s summer get-away he called “Camp Pine Cone.” In August, I plan to start a hike from the Mt. Madonna County Park Visitor Center exploring the peak area which can be accurately described as a beautiful bump in the southern Santa Cruz Mountains. If the weather is clear, we will be able to see the sweep of the Monterey Bay.
NOSO-N — Mike
(A Mutsun expression — “Noso-N — breath, so it is in spirit” describing life for all living things, as related by Ann Marie Sayers — an Amah Mutsun)
Mt. Madonna base
Location: Sprig Recreation Area, Mt. Madonna County Park, 4.8 miles west of Gilroy on Hecker Pass Highway.
Time/Date: 10 a.m., July 20
Contact: (408) 234-6377
