Redwoods hiking at Cotoni-Coast Dairies

North of Santa Cruz, 9 miles of new trails connect redwood forests and coastal bluffs

The big picture: Cotoni‑Coast Dairies, the newest unit in the California Coastal National Monument, recently opened to the public just north of Santa Cruz. 

The trails: 9 miles of trails, from easy to moderately strenuous. Open to hikers and cyclists (class 1 e-bikes are permitted). On-leash dogs are allowed on Hawk Trail and Tree Trail.  

What you’ll see: Coastal views, chaparral, open grasslands, and shaded groves of coast redwoods. 

Access: There is a large parking area with a restroom and trail map. The trailhead is located at 1 Cement Plant Rd, Davenport, CA 95017, 20 minutes from Santa Cruz. 

Late winter can mean hiking paradise on the Northern California coast. The hills are a radiant emerald green, wild mustard flowers carpet coastal bluffs in electric yellow, and every cleft in the landscape seems to hide a trickling brook. If you time it just right, you can get all that plus bright sunshine and shorts weather. That’s what greeted me during a recent trip exploring the Cotoni-Coast Dairies—the newest addition to the California Coastal National Monument. 

Cotoni‑Coast Dairies spans 5,800 acres on the western flank of the Santa Cruz Mountains, about 20 minutes north of Santa Cruz. It is the ancestral homeland of the Cotoni (Chuh‑toe‑knee) People, and was later used by a series of dairy operations. Designated a coastal national monument by President Obama in 2017—an effort supported by Save the Redwoods League—the area is overseen today by the Bureau of Land Management.

After years of trail work by Santa Cruz Mountains Trail Stewardship, the gates finally swung open to the public in August 2025. Since late summer on this stretch of coastline often means brown hills and constant fog, I waited a few months to experience the place for the first time in its full winter splendor. It did not disappoint.   

I arrived on a brilliant February morning and parked in a small dirt lot at the trailhead. I could smell the sea and hear surf crashing into Davenport Beach, just across Highway 1. The hills were almost neon green, rising to the east in a series of waves toward rocky peaks dotted with oaks and conifers. As I crunched onto the gravel trail, a pair of runners passed and waved hello. Above, a red-tailed hawk circled and cried out in a piercing whistle. Saying hello too, I think. 

Cotoni‑Coast Dairies offers 9 miles of trail arranged in three connected loops that pass through a mosaic of ecosystems, from chaparral to coast redwood groves. All three loops, ranging from easy to moderately difficult, begin on the Hawk Trail, a mellow 2.5‑mile path scented with sage.

This stretch is often shared with grazing Black Angus cows, whose constant munching helps mow down grasses and non‑native plants in a bit of bovine fire‑fuel reduction. If you don’t watch where you’re going, you might bump into one—a personal challenge, as my attention kept getting drawn by the surf cannonading against the faraway cliffs.  

The Hawk Trail leads to the aptly named Tree Trail, a 1.6-mile hike through second- and third-growth redwood groves. It was a jarring change from the arid chaparral, like two classic California coastal landscapes mashed together. The trail undulated through a series of lush groves, with ferns climbing the steep hillsides surrounding the redwoods. Every so often, I’d hear water tumbling through an unseen streamlet.  

Many of the tree trunks here are streaked with black from the August 2020 CZU Lightning Complex Fire, which burned through nearby Big Basin Redwoods State Park. The forest here, however, was largely spared. That’s because one of the fire’s early, lower‑intensity burns passed through before strong winds whipped the blaze into the firestorm that swept across the rest of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Those initial mild flames functioned like a controlled burn, consuming much of the easily ignited fuel on the forest floor and preserving these trees. 

Bright yellow banana slugs really stand out against those blackened trunks, and they were common along the Tree Trail, especially at the lowest, lushest part of the loop, which is where you’ll find a junction with Wildcat Trail. This 4-mile section is the most strenuous of the three loops, climbing to the highest points of Cotoni-Coast Dairies. It’s rockier and much steeper than the first two loops, but for a reasonably fit hiker carrying enough water, the reward is a set of commanding views.  

Some of those views include the adjacent San Vicente Redwoods, a property Save the Redwoods helped buy in 2011, now owned and managed by Peninsula Open Space Trust and the Sempervirens Fund. The BLM plans to eventually link trails in San Vicente Redwoods with the Wildcat Trail, connecting nearly 15,000 acres of protected, publicly accessible open space. 

I didn’t see those views though. After sweating my way up about a mile, I started to miss the cool, shaded redwoods I’d just left. Turning back, I hiked down to a bench I saw earlier near the Wildcat Trail junction. The bench sits on the edge of a small redwood grove, with an unobstructed view straight west toward the ocean. I plopped down, pulled out a pair of binoculars, and scanned the sea, hoping to see a whale spout. 

I didn’t see a whale. But on the trails below, I saw parents pushing toddlers in all-terrain strollers, bikers cheerfully encouraging each other as they climbed, and hikers of all ages and abilities pausing to drink in the views. I saw a tapestry of interdependent habitats and wildlife. I saw why it was so important for this special place to be preserved.