Butano State Park

Park News Alert
Due to service reductions the CAMPGROUND is on a seasonal closure.

Day use is still open from Sunrise to Sunset.

The campground is closed from December 1, 2011 to March 31, 2012.

Getting There
The park is on the San Mateo Coast, off Highway One. Three miles northeast of the Gazos Creek Coastal Access Point by way of Gazos Creek Road, and about 4.5 miles southeast of Pescadero by way of the Pescadero and Cloverdale Roads.

The Day Use Annual Pass is accepted at this park.

Seasons/Climate/Recommended Clothing
The weather can be changeable; layered clothing is recommended.

Operating Hours & Contact
The park is open sunrise to sunset, however please call the park for exact hours before visiting.

Telephone: 650-879-2040

Tips & Rules
-All single-track trails at Butano are closed to bikes and horses. Check for fire roads open to bicycling.
-For safety and resource protection, games such as ball, horseshoes, badminton and similar activities are not allowed in the park.
-Build fires in the fireplaces provided; do not leave fires unattended. Camp stoves are permitted.
-Quiet time is 10pm to 8am daily. Do not operate generators between 8pm and 10am.
-Dogs are permitted in the campground and in developed areas, providing they are controlled with a leash of no more than six feet at all times. Dogs are not permitted on the trails – except service animals.
-All natural and cultural park features are protected by law. Do not remove or harm plants, animals or other features of the park.
-Firewood collection is prohibited. Firewood may be purchased at the camp host site or kiosk.

Camping
Family Camping: Ben Ries Campground’s 39 family sites have tables, food lockers and fire rings. Restrooms with flush toilets are nearby.

Trail Camping: Backpackers (register at the park entrance or the visitor center) may camp only at designated sites. Pit toilets are available. Bring your own drinking water. Ground fires are not allowed; please use only gas or backpack stoves.

Make Campground Reservations

Max Camper Length: 24 Feet
Max Trailer Length: 24 Feet

Activities
The park features miles of hiking trails, 21 drive-in campsites and 18 walk-in campsites. Restrooms with running water are provided. Drinking water is available at the park in both the campground and the day-use areas. There are no showers.

Guided nature walks and weekend campfire programs are offered during the summer.

Hiking: Inviting walks allow visitors to photograph mushrooms in January, spot newts in February and orchids in March, or simply to stroll among the alders on the Six Bridges Trail.

Picnicking: Seven picnic sites are equipped with picnic tables and upright barbecue grills. Parking and pit toilets are located nearby. (Picnic tables in the campground are only for the use of registered campers.)

Park History
The human and natural histories of Butano State Park are closely linked. Though the indigenous people profoundly altered the natural landscape, they also remained intimate with it and dependent upon it. When the first Spanish explorers reached California after 1769, the area of what is now Butano State Park lay within the territory of the Quiroste tribe—a large group of Native Americans who had settled the area many thousands of years before. The Quiroste hunted game, harvested plant foods, dined on a great variety of seafood and sold coastal resources to their inland neighbors using shell beads as money. In autumn, the people burned large tracts of meadowlands to manage the foods they ate—especially hazelnuts and acorns. The fires improved plants that fed the deer, pronghorn and tule elk they hunted. Their once-managed landscape has reverted to wilderness. In the San Francisco and Monterey Bay regions, the Quiroste numbered among more than fifty tribes whose descendants are today called the Ohlone.

European migration brought new settlers to the region, beginning with the 1769 Portolá expedition. The new crops and grazing animals cultivated by these settlers decimated traditional Quiroste food sources, so most of the Quiroste gave up their land and were taken into the Spanish mission system. Some Quiroste hid in the mountains. After the missions were secularized in 1834, the land passed into private hands.

In the late 1860s, three families resided in the area—the Jacksons, Taylors and Mullens. These settlers and a man named Purdy Pharis logged the canyon, transforming the old-growth redwood forest into a variety of second- and third-growth habitats. Stumps and non-native vegetation are now the only signs of the logging that finally ended in the mid-1950s. In 1921, the Sempervirens Club, the Save the Redwoods League and the Sierra Club all joined in the efforts to preserve the land. The property was acquired by California State Parks in 1956.

Natural History
Redwoods get about 30 percent of their vital moisture from fog. As the earth’s climate warms, reduced fog threatens the redwoods’ survival. Butano State Park harbors six distinct natural communities—each named for its most prominent natural features.

Redwood/Douglas-Fir Forest: Much of the interior of Little Butano Canyon is dominated by towering redwoods and mossy Douglas-firs. Huckleberry bushes top the stumps of fallen redwoods. Western wake-robin and false Solomon’s seal bloom at ankle height. Purple calypso orchids bloom from February to April. Redwoods hollowed out by ancient forest fires provide homes for bats. In wet weather, watch out for newts and banana slugs along the trails through the ground cover. Look for tiny winter wrens, nearly invisible until their resonant songs give away their locations among the logs and stumps.

Coastal Grassland: The entrance area is grassland dominated by bush lupine and coyote brush. Blue-eyed grass and coastal suncups grow here. Sunrise and sunset are the best times to see such predators as bobcats and coyotes.

Alder Woodland: The first half-mile of Little Butano Creek is shaded by alders. Under their canopy, blackberries, stinging nettles, elderberries, dogwoods and willows provide food and shelter for insects, small mammals, reptiles and a variety of birds. Trout, crayfish and endangered red-legged frogs live in and around the creek. Berry plants may not be picked. Look for flowering currants, twinberries, thimbleberries, salmonberries, osoberries, gooseberries and baneberries.

Oak Woodland: On the side of the canyon above the park entrance, grasslands give way to a grove of live oaks. Bright orange chanterelle mushrooms sprout from the decayed oak tree litter. (Mushroom collecting is not allowed in Butano State Park.) The duff provides a garden bed for honeysuckle, coffeeberry, blackberry and poison oak. Look for arboreal salamanders on the ground and chickadees and warblers overhead.

Vernal Wetland: At Jackson Flats on the north side of the canyon and at Goat Hill on the south, the trees open onto mountainside marshes. The marshy terraces may be the heads of ancient landslides—the work of earthquakes along the San Gregorio fault. The marshes dry up in summer, yet they are vital to wildlife that breed in winter. Pacific tree frogs and California newts swim among the cattails; giant skunk cabbages and other water-loving plants thrive here.

Chaparral: On the ridge tops, softer soils turn into the chalky gravel of Santa Margarita sandstone, and tall firs and redwoods give way to shrubby, sap-encrusted knobcone pines, scrub oaks, manzanitas and chinquapin. Quick-moving western fence lizards scramble underfoot, and rattlesnakes may be encountered. The fragrance of the chaparral and the sight of blooming ceanothus, monkey flower and Indian paintbrush are well worth a summer hike.

Accessible Features
The Nature Center is generally accessible. Designated accessible parking is usable. The restroom in the campground by site #10 is usable, but assistance may be needed to get to the sidewalk from adjacent parking space.