Los Trancos Open Space Preserve
Once a ranch, the owner left it as a preserve in his will, worried to see such edens shrinking with the passing years.
Black Mountain Backpack Camp
Only free campsite for miles, it’s a walk-in of about 1.6miles from the car park and you need to book ahead.
The night before we made the sinuous trek into the campsite. It seemed a magical, silent place. Rolling green hills covered in wildflowers, forest below and deers out for their evening meal, curious but not tame. Will had told us it was a blood moon that night and it was already hung low and swollen in the sky as we approached the site, empty except for a Mexican family with all the trimmings. We sat on the hill watching the sunset the city of Palo Alto and distant San Francisco to the east and the blood moon to the west eating leftover cold pizza and waffles, so content. Bed was snug, rest required for the long day of driving ahead on route to Yosemite National Park.