Burleigh H Murray Ranch

There is only one trail and it follows the creek running from the parking lot at the West end of the park back up the valley that fills the park. You go out and back, and that’s it.
There is a barn about half way down the trail, an old and interesting one, really long for an old barn and with a way of delivering hay straight into the upper storey so it could easily be moved down to the animals. Further along there are two old water storage tanks that are not very interesting. Past that the trail continues but the valley gets narrower and the vegetation gets denser and eventually the trail just peters out. That’so it, unless you show up with brush-​clearing tools, I guess!
It feels kind of zen to have no alternative route and never to be going somewhere. I don’t go there often, but it is kind of cool sometimes.

FREE parking, though there’s only about 15 spots. No drinking water — you gotta bring it.
There’s 1 pit toilet up a bit further from the parking lot on the Left, and maybe another 20 minutes there’s another pit toilet and picnic table. No dog allowed per website.
It’s only about 1 mile to the old Mills Dairy Barn, there are 2 picnic tables near it for a picnic lunch. If you want to continue another 1 mile you can see 2 big water tanks. Then head back down the same trail.
Maybe worth a visit & then do something else in HMB or elsewhere.
Website:

Although its not a very challenging hike and primarily on a fire road, i give this 4 stars because it is so quiet and peaceful in this park. Not very many people know about this place or visit, so the few times I have been there it has felt like going back in time and more remote than most other bay area hikes which can be crowded on the weekend. Beautiful little creek follows the entire hike, but its a little bit of a tease as you can’t actually hike down to the creek anyplace. Ideal if you are looking for a peaceful/​quiet relatively simple hike which transports you to an earlier time in California.

A hike to the historic, two-​story barn at Murray Ranch SP is fun and exciting. It’s got that slightly run-​down feel that makes you feel like you have discovered something from CA’s pre-​Silicon Valley past, when farming and ranching and orchards and logging were the ordinary things to do. It’s an exposed hike through an old ranch slowly returning to a state of semi-​secluded isolation, with smells, sights, and sounds of the western side of the Santa Cruz Mts. We took a book to read and and picnicked beside the barn. It’s that kind of a place.

Less two stars for not being a hard uphill or a long hike, but three solid stars for being out in the middle of the quiet, and for being shaded. This would be a good hike during the heat of the summertime. If it were Colorado I’d say to watch out for bears, it felt like that kinda trail: not used very often, good place to find berries.
I went hiking here with my friend Abhay– we took Ranch road in-​our destination was to check out the barn that was build in the 1860’s– it was only a few miles in, trails were shaded and flat, in fact this would be a great running trail. Once we saw the barn we followed the trail further to the water tower, and then bushwacked a ways past that until it wasn’t any fun anymore.
This location in general is pretty out-​of-​the-​way, so I wouldn’t do it as a woman running alone, but it’s definitely a neat trail because there’s a lot of signs with info about people who lived here a hundred + years ago.