The De Anza Trail connecting Monterey and San Benito counties is a gem. Why is it so hidden?

Sara Rubin here, looking for all the little slices of green on the map. This became a pastime of sorts during the pandemic—finding trails and parks where you might not even realize they exist, exploring my own backyard for places to get outside. 

It was thanks to reporting on a story in 2023 about a local man, Bob Brunson, who walked 800 miles to visit all of California’s missions, that I learned there was such a slice of green right outside Salinas. 

I was not interested in walking 800 miles, but I was very interested in walking four miles over the Gabilan Mountains from near Salinas toward San Juan Bautista. It took me until 2025 to actually set out to do so, and I was pleasantly surprised—the De Anza Trail is lovely and well-maintained, starting alongside the lushly vegetated Towne Creek canyon, going up and over the hills for some fabulous views (including of Fremont Peak), before descending gradually to San Benito County. 

The route is not only pleasant, but historic. Two-hundred-fifty years ago today, Juan Bautista de Anza set out with members of his expedition team to travel from Natividad camp in Salinas to San Juan Bautista. Anza’s legacy—and the legacy of colonization, more broadly—is controversial, as it deserves to be, but it unambiguously transformed North America. (The evolving way in which we relate to and interpret this history is the subject of Senior Staff Writer Pam Marino’s cover story from a couple of weeks ago.) 

Anza’s expedition route is marked today largely as an auto route, with signs on roads and highways noting where the group traveled in 1775-1776 on their way from Sonora, Mexico to San Francisco. Last fall, the Monterey County Board of Supervisors approved an agreement with the National Parks Service to replace 14 of these signs on the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail. 

“The County of Monterey is proud to serve as a steward of this historic trail and is committed to preserving and promoting inclusive history,” an accompanying resolution stated. 

Only catch: The actual part of the trail—where you can walk these lovely four miles along the expedition route—remains tough to find.

I asked Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church about the absence of an obvious trailhead. There are some structural reasons—the road is narrow and there’s no obvious place for a parking area, unlike the San Benito side—and there’s also a record of neighbors liking things just the way they are. “We are butting up against some property owners and there isn’t a whole lot of enthusiasm,” Church says, recapping a briefing he received based on outreach by his predecessors.

During a campaign to improve the trail 20-some years ago, the Don Chapin Company donated gates and a portable toilet on the San Benito County side—which they continue to service, gratis, decades later. Chapin is hopeful about a current push by leaders at the California Welcome Center in Salinas to revive the trail and make it into more of an attraction. 

“People go to the Peninsula all the time, but there is so much to do and see in our community,” Chapin says. “The more we shine a light on this trail, the better. It’s a spectacular property, and when you think back about that expedition and what they did, it’s frankly quite remarkable.”

So too is the fact that we can retrace their steps today, 250 years later.