The Making of Camp Cruz,
A Story of Grit and Community
In a way, the odds were not in my favor to acquire acreage and run a successful glamping retreat as I currently do at Camp Cruz. As a first generation Mexican-American raised by a working-class single mom with no college education, I grew up with one kind of likely future: to get a decent paying job working as an employee. Without deconstructing the socio-economic inequalities in the United States whereby access to resources of wealth, like land ownership, are tangible opportunities for some more than others, this is the story of how an unlikely person such as myself managed to build a glampground vacation destination.
In 2004 my wife and I became first-time homeowners while starting our journey as parents. The home was on five acres with a year-round creek in a shady canyon in the redwood forest of the Santa Cruz Mountains. It was a small home built out of old growth redwood in the mid-20th century by homesteaders. The forest at the home was unmanaged and overgrown. The sunlight barely reached the forest floor through the tall redwoods. Thistles and ferns dominated the understory.
Although I didn’t realize it at the time, the resources to transform the land into a glampground began coming together in the first year we arrived. Wanting to increase the amount of sunlight reaching the forest floor, we fell some big trees. We had no significant capital so we relied on bartering as much as possible. A friend, who was a tree climber, offered to do the tree work as a side job. After two years of little by little doing tree work, we had a lot of logs and branches on the forest floor to clean up. With the help of family and friends, we grinded stumps, chipped branches, and burned brush in the winter. Then a neighbor offered to mill the logs in exchange for some of the lumber. With the clearing of the trees came more open space and sunlight as we had hoped for. Friends volunteered to help create a garden with currants, ceanothus, blueberries, fruit trees, and more. The first thing we built was a sweat lodge and a proper fire pit. Volunteers often enjoyed sweat lodges at the end of work days.
Camp remained as a diamond in the rough for a few more years. We felt overwhelmed by this never ending project while parenting our two babies. Early one morning on Memorial Day weekend in 2008 something horrible happened. A wildfire sparked on a nearby ridge due to extremely strong winds. Everybody on the mountain evacuated. We sped down the mountain at sunrise with our kids, our dogs, and a few belongings. Driving past several spot fires along the road felt surreal. The winds were so strong that not even firefighters dared to go into the canyon on the first day of the fire. It seemed hopeless that our home would survive. We returned four days later relieved to discover that our home had been spared. Sadly, several homes of our neighbors had burnt to the ground. In the spirit of community, we immediately set to help one neighbor who lost everything in the fire by putting on a benefit concert on our land. This led to more camp improvements. We built a stage with lumber from our trees. Interestingly enough, firefighters who spoke at the fundraiser said that all the tree work and clearing we had done undoubtedly saved our home from burning in the wildfire. All the reluctance that I harbored about the tree felling that we did years ago were resolved at that time. It turned out that we saved our home by doing the tree work.
In that same year, we began a new wave of development at camp. Our land, which we acquired as an unmanaged and overgrown forest, had begun to transform into a unique glampground within a cathedral of redwoods. Local support for Camp Cruz grew as word spread about it among community organizations, schools, and college students. Volunteers became attracted to our mission to help people connect with nature. With their help, we improved the camp one project at a time - no different than at the beginning - without any significant financial capital. We just had the land and the intention to share it with others. With a background in education, I started Growing Up Wild, a bilingual outdoor education program for local underserved youth. Camp Cruz is the base camp for this nonprofit outdoor education program. Through receiving donations and grants, we have provided outdoor education programs consistently since 2010. If you wish to learn more about our nonprofit outdoor education program, please go to www.growingupwild.org.
Our commitment to have a low impact on the environment led us to decide to allow only one group at a time no matter how small. Campers, especially couples, are pleasantly surprised to find that they get to have use of the whole camp to themselves. If you wish to book a stay at Camp Cruz, please visit our Airbnb listing.
In 2004 my wife and I became first-time homeowners while starting our journey as parents. The home was on five acres with a year-round creek in a shady canyon in the redwood forest of the Santa Cruz Mountains. It was a small home built out of old growth redwood in the mid-20th century by homesteaders. The forest at the home was unmanaged and overgrown. The sunlight barely reached the forest floor through the tall redwoods. Thistles and ferns dominated the understory.
Although I didn’t realize it at the time, the resources to transform the land into a glampground began coming together in the first year we arrived. Wanting to increase the amount of sunlight reaching the forest floor, we fell some big trees. We had no significant capital so we relied on bartering as much as possible. A friend, who was a tree climber, offered to do the tree work as a side job. After two years of little by little doing tree work, we had a lot of logs and branches on the forest floor to clean up. With the help of family and friends, we grinded stumps, chipped branches, and burned brush in the winter. Then a neighbor offered to mill the logs in exchange for some of the lumber. With the clearing of the trees came more open space and sunlight as we had hoped for. Friends volunteered to help create a garden with currants, ceanothus, blueberries, fruit trees, and more. The first thing we built was a sweat lodge and a proper fire pit. Volunteers often enjoyed sweat lodges at the end of work days.
Camp remained as a diamond in the rough for a few more years. We felt overwhelmed by this never ending project while parenting our two babies. Early one morning on Memorial Day weekend in 2008 something horrible happened. A wildfire sparked on a nearby ridge due to extremely strong winds. Everybody on the mountain evacuated. We sped down the mountain at sunrise with our kids, our dogs, and a few belongings. Driving past several spot fires along the road felt surreal. The winds were so strong that not even firefighters dared to go into the canyon on the first day of the fire. It seemed hopeless that our home would survive. We returned four days later relieved to discover that our home had been spared. Sadly, several homes of our neighbors had burnt to the ground. In the spirit of community, we immediately set to help one neighbor who lost everything in the fire by putting on a benefit concert on our land. This led to more camp improvements. We built a stage with lumber from our trees. Interestingly enough, firefighters who spoke at the fundraiser said that all the tree work and clearing we had done undoubtedly saved our home from burning in the wildfire. All the reluctance that I harbored about the tree felling that we did years ago were resolved at that time. It turned out that we saved our home by doing the tree work.
In that same year, we began a new wave of development at camp. Our land, which we acquired as an unmanaged and overgrown forest, had begun to transform into a unique glampground within a cathedral of redwoods. Local support for Camp Cruz grew as word spread about it among community organizations, schools, and college students. Volunteers became attracted to our mission to help people connect with nature. With their help, we improved the camp one project at a time - no different than at the beginning - without any significant financial capital. We just had the land and the intention to share it with others. With a background in education, I started Growing Up Wild, a bilingual outdoor education program for local underserved youth. Camp Cruz is the base camp for this nonprofit outdoor education program. Through receiving donations and grants, we have provided outdoor education programs consistently since 2010. If you wish to learn more about our nonprofit outdoor education program, please go to www.growingupwild.org.
Our commitment to have a low impact on the environment led us to decide to allow only one group at a time no matter how small. Campers, especially couples, are pleasantly surprised to find that they get to have use of the whole camp to themselves. If you wish to book a stay at Camp Cruz, please visit our Airbnb listing.
