Purisima Creek Redwoods Preserve is located about 35 miles south of San Francisco and just minutes from downtown Half Moon Bay. There are several places to enter the area. The main entrance is located on Skyline Blvd. 4.5 miles south of Hwy 92, near the North Ridge Trailhead.

My boyfriend and I came to check out Purisima Creek Redwoods Preserve shortly after moving to San Francisco, looking for somewhere to do a little mountain biking and for me to get my first glimpse at some redwoods!

Purisima Creek is absolutely beautiful! Purisima Creek Redwoods are known as a second-growth redwood forest, meaning that the primary forest of redwoods over 1,000 years old were harvested in the late 1800's. Along the trails you can see some of the stumps that were left behind from 1,000 year old harvested redwood trees. Some older trees remain in the forest, possibly due to the lack of appropriate shape during the harvesting era. The wood from this area was used for shingles in the building of San Francisco after the Gold Rush. There's a ton of interesting information in the brochure they hand you coming into the park (read it!) I love visiting other redwood parks only to repeat my gained knowledge to my friends & family! :o)

The network of trails in this area is fairly diverse. There are over 2600 acres and 21 miles of developed trails in the preserve. Some climbs are very challenging and exceed 1500 feet in elevation gains.

Trails through the park can either be a demanding climb or a screaming downhill. If you start from the Tunitas Creek Road entrance, you may be very pleased to find a really fun downhill. If you approach this trail from the Purisima Creek Trail it will be a very challenging climb for all riders. We unfortunately chose the grueling climb, only to ditch our bikes after a short while to hike. *Tip: The downhill would definitely be a lot more fun! Not sure how to get back to the car at the top of the hill though, let us know if you've figured it out!