Hollister Hills State Vehicular Recreation Area is a great place to make a day trip or a weekend excursion for some great off-roading. Some friends and I arranged with several folks from Off-Road.com's Suzuki4x4 Mailing List to meet there during our college Spring Break and we had a wonderful experience that we would recommend to anyone looking for a great time. Hollister Hills SVRA is very easy to find, and being located in Central California's Gabilan Mountains near Monterey Bay, it is within a reasonable distance for many off-road enthusiasts: just 1 hour from San Jose.

Approaching from the North, take US 101 South from San Jose. About 35 miles from San Jose you will reach the town of Gilroy. Here you will take CA 25 twelve miles to the town of Hollister.

From the South, you could travel North along US 101 until turning off at either CA 25 or CA 156, either of which will take you to the town of Hollister. Otherwise, if you're traveling North along Interstate 5, turn off at CA 152 going West, then follow CA 156 South a short ways into the town of Hollister.

Although there are many turnoffs and winding roads in the 6 miles between the town of Hollister and the actual park, it is very well marked with large signs at every intersection. Even finding it at night is not a problem, so I will not bother with specific instructions; you will find it.

The park is a total of 6,627 acres of oak, grasslands, and chaparral ranging in elevation from 660 to 2,425 feet, and the whole recreation area is divided into two areas to separate the motorcycle/ATV area from the 4x4 area. Regardless of where you plan to recreate, you need to register at the Ranger Station at the entrance to the Lower Ranch. A 1-day pass is $4 per vehicle, and an overnight stay adds just $2 to that. When you pay the fees, you will be given a park map and the combination to the locked entrance gate to the Upper Ranch if your plans are to use a 4x4.Our visit was in the beginning of March, and we lucked out getting a weekend between rain storms.

This is a great time of year, because things had dried out enough so that there weren't mud bogs at every turn, but not so dry that it was just a big dust bowl. Because the park is only 6 miles from town, if there's anything you need, you'll find it within a reasonable distance. Also, there is a hospital in town in case of emergency.We spent our weekend in the 4x4 ranch, but I can give some brief info on the Lower Ranch as well. The Lower Ranch is comprised of 64 miles of trails and several hillclimbs, two picnic areas, four campsites, a practice motocross track, an ATV track, a TT track, a mini-bike trail, and a mini-track. Riding is allowed from sunrise to sunset, and occasionally a trail will be closed for maintenance or extremely muddy conditions, but the area is open all year 'round. At the Ranger Station you can find a washrack and also a fast air compressor to prepare your vehicle to go back onto the road.

Hollister Hills' Upper Ranch is where 4Wheeler Magazine holds their annual Top Truck Challenge. Each year, the park rangers tear up the place to make the already tough obstacles even worse (better?). However, if you've seen the TTC video, do not be intimidated. The 24 miles of trails range in difficulty from easy 2WD-accessible dirt roads to the next-to-impossible Mini-Rubicon. The park is laid out like a ski resort:There is not one long trail, but rather many trails winding throughout the park, usually accessible from several places.

The difficulty rating of most trails is marked with a post on the side of the trail and on the trail map in a similar manner to ski resorts, utilizing the standard green dots, blue squares, and black diamonds. However, once we got into the park, we found it very hard to follow the map until we knew the trails a bit better due to the numerous unmarked trails throughout the park. Luckily, Hollister is not a big enough place to get lost, and at least on weekends there are other people in their trucks everywhere you turn.On Saturday we met up with a couple of other guys, Wayne and Edd from the Suzuki4x4 Mailing List with their two blue SPOA'd Samurai softtops.

We had a blast, and met up with with another Suzuki guy, Ramon, (not on the list yet) with a Calmini SR'd but otherwise stock Samurai. While a crowd watched a locked, geared, and Boggered Land Rover D-90 almost backwards-endo while climbing Truck Hill (you would not believe how steep, long and rutted some of the hillclimbs are!), Edd wedged his Samurai sideways in a deep rut (the park definitely felt the effects of El Nino's rain!) As Wayne chuckled at him over the CB, another rut not 50 feet from Edd's rut swallowed one of Wayne's wheels and he went over onto his driver's side door.

Everyone missed these two rollovers because they were all waiting to see the Land Rover (which never rolled, but came awfully close!) but after that show was over, it was picture time as we winched 'em back onto their feet.There were a couple of FJ80 TLCs there, one of which decided to pretty much nose-dive into a creek bed. Our 5-Zuk caravan happened upon them and attempted to winch the stuck one sideways off the bank, but poor Edd's Samurai was outweighed 2.5 to 1, so he was just being dragged.

As a last resort, the other Toyota did a dramatic sideways-pull of the stuck Land Cruiser and managed to yank him out without causing an expensive rollover.Edd made it through Mini-Rubicon, but when Wayne gave it a try, he managed a bit of rocker-panel damage and decided to back up out of it. After TTC, the Mini-Rube was left pretty brutal, so the rest of us declined the opportunity for some new body work, especially since we had a 500-mile drive only a few days later, with no money to repair any potentially expensive damage to our running gear!We stayed the night inside the park in the Upper Ranch's one family campground, Sycamore, where there is water and flush toilets. Although the camp is designed to accommodate 60 people, the rains had caused the small creek running through the camp to wash away much of the area.

However, there were still 5 sites available, and we found it to be a very pleasant area in which to camp; just look out for poison oak! Fires are allowed in fire rings only, and you will either need to bring your own wood or purchase some at the park store.The next day, after seeing a couple large pickups attempt to start the steep climb to the top of Hector Heights, we decided to follow them to them up. Halfway up, they were having some problems on one hill, so we went around them and made it all the way to the top, where our reward was a breathtaking vista. At 2,500 feet, we were looking down on the rest of the whole park, barely able to see the other trucks on the trails down below.

From the top of this hill, there was a "trail" going down the other side. This trail was the steepest I have ever seen. The hill was covered with loose shale gravel, and as we walked down it, it kept curving ever steeper downward. Probably around a 70-80% grade, it was to the point where we weren't even going to try walking any further, much less drive our vehicles on it! Talk about Endo City! I think there's a reason why it's not marked on the map and why there weren't any recent tracks to be seen.

One of the other Samurai guys we met up with, Derek, had a stock, un-muffled, beaten white Samurai convertible. He tackled the Tank Trap for the first time anyone had even considered that trail since the rains had started.

There are not words to describe how tough that trail is, and this is from our perspective of seeing a downhill attempt at it, minus the 10-foot berms and 5-foot-deep lakes that were constructed for Top Truck Challenge! I admire the guts of any TTC competitor!!! After giving it a shot for the first 100 yards, Derek turned around and made it back to the top, where he pulled a hair-raising, off-camber, two-wheeled, full-throttle (etc.) escape from the ravine. We all could have sworn he was going to do midair barrel-roll, but he disappointed us all, to our disbelief. Unfortunately, he shattered his clutch in the process.

We towed him out, loaded his Zuk up onto his trailer (like I said, they were there to thrash) and said goodbye to them.The three of us were having such a great time that we decided to stay one more night. In the morning (Monday) we found the park absolutely abandoned, so we decided to pack up and head home. In the two full days of 4-wheeling we did, we still did not get to every trail. We did, however, head back to the Obstacle Course and nearby day use area and restrooms several times each day; it's a great meeting place, and there's plenty of entertainment watching all the other trucks attempting the different obstacles there.

Of the trails we did get to, our favorites were the Obstacle Course's Frame Twister and cement hill-climb thing, Five Fingers Hill-climb and the trails winding all over that hill and behind Sycamore Camp, and the quarry on the way up to Hector Heights. They were all fun, and due in large part to the ruts created by the rains, each trail presented a different challenge.Hollister Hills is definitely a park that no 4x4 enthusiast should pass up.

I will definitely be returning there as soon as I can, and I would love to arrange to meet anyone there if it fits my schedule. If anyone has any questions, feel free to email me anytime.

--Geoff Beasley (Zukiman!)
87 Samurai H/T
UIN#4669187
http://www.northcoast.com/~zukiman

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