Probably the Castle Rock State Park offers the best view around the San Francisco Peninsula. It includes the mountain peak at 3,000 feet, the highest in the Santa Cruz mountain rage, as well as a gorgeous water fall (although there was no water when we visit there in the end of August...) To the south, we could see even the Monterey Bay. But what we found was that this park is popular with mountain climbers. A short excursion to the other side of Skyline Boulevard gave us another great view; thousands of feet above right next to the city of San Jose. The only complaint was the noises from near by shooting range and engine noise of motorcycles.

There are a lot of choices of parks if you are interested in the tall, magnificent, and giant redwoods. One of them is Big Basin State Park between San Jose and Santa Cruz. It is a very popular destination for camping during the summer time. The park is filled with families to exit the scorching hot summer day in San Jose. The temperature is considerably cooler under the dark shadows of redwoods forest even in the middle of the summer. A popular hiking destination is the Berry Creek Fall about 5 miles from the park head quarter. This 60 feet tall water fall had plenty of water when we visited in the middle of summer.

The other choices for redwoods in the San Francisco bay area includes; Muir Woods National Monument, Portola State Park, San Mateo Memorial County Park, Pescadero Creek County Park, Redwood Regional Park. There seems to be lot of parks that protects redwoods. But it is a small number considering that the redwoods once covered many of the SF Bay area. I went for a hike with my friends on one weekend. We ended up in a trail at the Alpine Road near La Honda Road that is not even belong to any park. The short trail passes through the big redwood forest along side of a creek. As usual for the redwoods, the atmosphere is dark, moist, and cool. A long trail leads into near-by park as well.