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Spring

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• Adults: $
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Tours vary in length. Our mini-tours run 45 minutes long, day-tours vary from 90 minutes to 2 hours.

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Scenic Nature Tour at Henry Cowell Redwood State Park, Santa Cruz

Cowell features short and easy redwood promenades. The massive redwoods are stunning, and there's a nice mix of big leaf maple, tanoak, California bay, hazelnut and chaparral distinguished by knobcone, including a few shrubs of purple bush lupine mix through chamise, manzanita, monkeyflower, pines, and huckleberry. The park's varied terrain and vegetation is a nice surprise, adding an extra dimension to the tour.

The park features a forest that looks much the same as it did 200 years ago. Zayante Indians once lived in the area, where they found shelter, water and game. The park is the home of the Redwood Grove and Douglas fir, madrone, oak and the most unusual feature of the park, a stand of Ponderosa pine.

The tallest tree in the park is about 285 feet tall, and about 16 feet wide. The oldest trees in the park are about 1400 to 1800 years old. The park is former ranch land, and many trails are old ranch roads. Numerous ponds, springs, creeks, and swimming holes throughout the park provide fishing opportunities and the chance to cool off on a hot day.

The tour passes through a meadow, which in late winter may be dotted with popcorn flowers, baby blue eyes, and fiddlenecks. Squirrels have constructed elaborate burrows under oaks and across the meadows, so you will probably see plenty of the scampering bushy tailed animals near these colonies.