Meet Mountain Parks Foundation: The Foundation Behind Henry Cowell and Big Basin
Maybe you've walked beneath the old-growth redwoods at Henry Cowell, followed a trail map into the forest, stopped inside the Nature Store, joined a park program, or brought your kids to see the redwoods for the first time.
You know the parks.
But you may not know the nonprofit working quietly behind the scenes to help make many of those experiences possible.
We're Mountain Parks Foundation.
Since 1973, Mountain Parks Foundation has worked in cooperation with California State Parks to support Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, including the Fall Creek Unit, and Big Basin Redwoods State Park. We're the only nonprofit dedicated exclusively to these two extraordinary parks, and for more than 50 years, our role has been simple: help people build meaningful relationships with these places so they'll continue to value and protect them for generations to come.
You may already know our work without knowing our name.
SO, WHAT DOES MOUNTAIN PARKS FOUNDATION ACTUALLY DO?
A state park is much more than the land inside its boundaries. It's the naturalist who teaches a child why a redwood can survive for more than a thousand years, the trail sign that tells you what you're looking at, the map that helps you find your way, the volunteer who welcomes you, and the program that gives you a reason to see a familiar place differently.
Mountain Parks Foundation works alongside California State Parks as a cooperating association. California State Parks manages the land, while MPF helps fill important gaps through funding, staffing support, volunteer recruitment and management, retail operations, educational experiences, interpretive resources, and special projects.
In other words, we don't stand in front of the parks.
We stand behind them.
Our work has included supporting:
Educational and interpretive programs
Student field trips
Trail signs, maps, guides, and visitor information
California State Parks staff and naturalists
Volunteer recruitment and management
Visitor centers and exhibits
Backpacking experiences
Nature-based wellness programs
Cultural and natural history experiences
The Nature Store at Henry Cowell
Projects supporting the future of Big Basin
Some of these things are easy to see. Others happen quietly in the background. Together, they help turn a trip to the redwoods into something people remember.
WHY DOES THAT MATTER?
Because we believe there's a relationship between wonder and stewardship.
Standing beneath an ancient redwood can make you feel very small in the best possible way. Learning that the sandy soil beneath your feet is connected to an ancient inland sea might make you look at the landscape differently. Watching a child see an old-growth redwood for the first time might remind you why access to these places matters.
The more we understand a place, the more connected we become to it. And when people feel connected to something, they're much more likely to care what happens to it next.
That idea sits at the heart of Mountain Parks Foundation.
Wonder leads to understanding. Understanding creates connection. Connection inspires stewardship.
TWO PARKS. TWO VERY DIFFERENT STORIES.
Henry Cowell and Big Basin are often mentioned in the same breath, but experiencing them today tells two very different stories.
Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park sits just outside downtown Felton and welcomes visitors into old-growth redwoods, river habitat, grasslands, and the rare Santa Cruz Sandhills. The park's Redwood Grove is home to trees that have stood for more than a thousand years, while its trails, visitor center, educational experiences, and programs make it a place people can return to again and again.
Big Basin tells a different story. Established in 1902, it is California's oldest state park and an important part of California's conservation history. After the CZU Lightning Complex Fire swept through the park in 2020, Big Basin entered a new chapter. Ancient redwoods survived, new growth emerged, trails began reopening, and the work of imagining the park's future began.
Today, visiting Big Basin means witnessing resilience in real time.
Mountain Parks Foundation is committed to both places: one familiar and thriving, the other actively recovering and being reimagined for generations of visitors who haven't met it yet.
SOMETIMES OUR WORK LOOKS LIKE A FIELD TRIP.
One of the best ways to understand MPF is to look at the experiences we help support.
Through Kids2Parks, Mountain Parks Foundation partners with California State Parks and Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks to help bring students from Title I schools to Henry Cowell, reducing barriers that might otherwise prevent a child from experiencing the redwoods firsthand.
We support California State Parks backpacking adventures led by park naturalists, giving people opportunities to travel through old-growth forests, ridgelines, and coastal landscapes while learning from people who understand these ecosystems deeply.
At Henry Cowell, the Sandhills Mobile Visitor Center brings the surprising geological story of the Santa Cruz Sandhills directly to campground visitors. Redwood Rx creates opportunities for people to experience the parks through nature-based wellness. Interpretive signs, maps, books, and guides help explain what you're seeing while you're here.
Different experiences. Same underlying idea.
Give people a meaningful way to connect with a place, and they may leave caring about it a little more than when they arrived.
SOMETIMES IT LOOKS LIKE A NATURE STORE.
If you've visited the Nature Store at Henry Cowell, you've experienced another part of Mountain Parks Foundation.
It's where you can find maps before a hike, books that answer the questions your walk created, locally inspired gifts, field guides, artwork, and, naturally, more banana slug merchandise than you knew you needed.
But the Nature Store isn't simply a gift shop.
Purchases help support Mountain Parks Foundation's work in the parks, which means the map you grab before a walk or the banana slug souvenir you bring home becomes another small way to participate in the bigger story.
Yes, we're giving you official permission to feel good about the banana slug magnet.
AND SOMETIMES THE WORK IS ABOUT WHAT COMES NEXT.
Big Basin is perhaps the clearest example.
The 2020 CZU Fire destroyed much of the park's infrastructure, including the former Nature Museum, but it didn't end Big Basin's story. Mountain Parks Foundation is supporting the vision for a new hub for discovery and stewardship at the park's future Gateway, including spaces designed to help visitors understand the redwood ecosystem and the remarkable recovery happening around them.
That's part of what makes this work so interesting.
Stewardship isn't only about preserving the past. It's also about deciding what kind of relationship future generations will have with these places.
MORE THAN 50 YEARS LATER, THE IDEA IS STILL SIMPLE.
Mountain Parks Foundation began its partnership with California State Parks in 1973. Since then, millions of people have walked these trails, school groups have stepped underneath the redwoods for the first time, volunteers have donated their time, families have returned year after year, and these parks have continued to change.
So have we.
But the reason we're here hasn't changed much at all.
We want people to experience these places.
We want them to understand why they're extraordinary.
And we want that connection to become something lasting.
HOW CAN YOU BE PART OF IT?
You don't have to become a conservation expert to care for the redwoods.
You can:
Visit Henry Cowell or Big Basin.
Bring someone who has never been.
Take a park program and learn something new.
Stop into the Nature Store.
Volunteer your time.
Share the story of these places.
Or simply slow down on your next walk and pay closer attention.
There isn't only one way to care for a place.
Sometimes stewardship begins with looking up.
THIS IS MOUNTAIN PARKS FOUNDATION.
We're the people behind programs, projects, experiences, volunteers, interpretation, and opportunities that help connect people with Henry Cowell and Big Basin Redwoods State Parks.
But ultimately, this story isn't only about a Foundation.
It's about what happens when people experience a place worth caring about and decide they want to be part of what happens next.
For more than 50 years, that's what we've been here to help make possible.
Welcome to Mountain Parks Foundation. We're glad you're here.