Biblical scholars debate over the locale of the Garden of Eden. Genesis 2:10–14 lists four rivers in association with Eden, and scholars only guess where it might have been. It turns out that the Garden of Eden is near the town of Felton in Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park.
This swimming hole is part of the San Lorenzo River that winds through the park. You can start from the Rincon Parking Lot on Highway 9 and walk about .5 mile to turn right down the steep path down to the pool. Or start from the Ox Trail parking lot further up Highway 9 toward Felton, from that direction and you’ll walk along the tracks for about a mile. Either way, your trip to the Garden of Eden will make you a cross-tie walker.
Got no sand in my pocket, you know I ain’t tied down
Ain’t no sand in my pocket, never do sit down
I’m just a cross-tie walker, where the freight trains run
—“Cross-Tie Walker,” Creedence Clearwater Revival
You’ve got your choices of what to walk on when following a railroad line. I wear a size 13 sneaker (Hokas!), and for me to walk on top of the steel track is no small feat. The steel rail is so narrow it’s hard to balance on. My legs wobble.
Legendary Santa Cruz movement guru Laurie Broderick-Burr tells me to embrace my wobbles: “We acknowledge the choice to work with them rather than be afraid of them or battle them.”
Broderick-Burr says that learning to maintain balance means we must lose balance: “Balance can be defined as the capacity to maintain the line of gravity within the base of support. We could also think of balance as maintenance. It’s important for us to lose our balance to grow our balance skills. Neurons that fire together wire together.”
She says that we can bend the aging curve, but it takes embracing the wobbles.
So, I try to walk on the rails. I do more falling off than stepping forward and finally walk the cross-ties. My stride never fits the distance of the ties, and every third or fourth step I’ve got to step on the gravel between ties and my gait stumbles forward.
A mile of three long steps and one short throws me in a bit of a neurological seizure. I try walking the bed of crushed rock next to the rails, and for a while it is a relief to crunch over the gravel. Crunch stepping soon becomes annoying and I step off the gravel onto the dirt path. I’m a dirt kind of guy; it’s soft, it gives, it makes me feel connected to the earth. I can walk a long way on dirt with no pain.
One of the most famous cross-tie walkers, Neal Cassady, was a brakeman, a Merry Prankster and the inspiration for Jack Kerouac’s stream-of-consciousness prose. A 16,000-word handwritten letter from Cassady about his sexploits is said to have given Kerouac his writing style.
Cassady never stopped walking, dancing, cavorting or running off into the wind. He loved to dance the mambo with locals in Santa Cruz and died in 1968 while walking along a railroad track in Mexico.
This is an amazing place to swim, refresh and restore in the San Lorenzo River. It’s got clear, blue-green water flowing over rocks, into swimming pools, by sandy beaches, all between steep, redwood-covered banks. Some people choose the clothing optional option, no fig leaf required.
If you go on the weekend in warm weather, it will be packed. Any other time, you may find yourself there alone. If it is crowded, you can walk upstream to find your own Eden-esque pool. It can be a pack-your-lunch kind of day, but no barbecue or fires.
In warm weather the Garden of Eden is about as cool as swimming in the redwoods gets. I’ve heard warnings not to head-first dive or to use the rope swing: There are rocks beneath the surface. Please check out where the rocks are before launching your body over the water.
Directions
There are two ways to get there by car.
The Ox Trail Method: From Santa Cruz, drive three miles up Highway 9, past the South Entrance to Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, until you see the sign for the North Entrance to the park and a large dirt lot to your right with two green metal gates. A sign will say Ox Trail. If you reach Toll House Resort, you’ve gone too far.
Enter through the southernmost gate and follow a wide trail down the hill. At the fork, follow the path to the right and continue another quarter mile or so until you reach the railroad tracks. Turn right at the tracks and follow them for about a mile until you see a “No Campfire” and “No Alcoholic Beverages” sign on your left. Follow the steep trail down to the Garden of Eden swimming hole.
The Rincon Way: Stop at the Rincon parking Lot, navigate down to the railroad tracks and turn left. This way is about a half of a mile of cross-tie walking. You will walk over a short trestle with No Trespassing signs, but the train that uses this track crawls along and since I was able to get out of the way, I’m pretty sure you can too. You can’t see the Garden of Eden from the railroad tracks but look for the famous warning signs at the head of the path down to the pool.
No-Car Directions
One UCSC student reports that he goes to the Garden of Eden on his mountain bike. He uses the Emma McCrary and U-con trails, or the UCSC fire roads, to get to the railroad tracks. If this sounds like you, remember to lock your bike to a tree at the head of the final path down to the swimming hole.
