The Storm of January 1982 as Seen From Within Nisene Marks State Park
Queue eerie music...
It had been raining since New Years Day.
A few days later, a large Alaskan storm front moved in and stalled over the Santa Cruz
Mountains. It was joined by another mass of wet air coming in from the south, making for a storm that slammed into Santa Cruz County on January 4. Before it was over, an estimated 15 inches of rain fell in the upper reaches of the park. It fell so hard the rain gauges filled and spilled over before they could be read, so we will never know how much rain fell during those three days.
Aptos Creek became a snarling, raging brown monster, tearing out creek banks and pulling entire trees with roots intact into the stream. Many go those trees and logs eventually formed massive log jams downstream.
One measure of the flood in Aptos Creek Canyon was the number of historic monuments that were carried away. Railroad trestle footings that had stood above Aptos Creek since they were built in the 1880’s disappeared, as did old logging structures all along the area’s streams.
If the structures that were carried away were any measure, this was probably the largest such event in the past century. Bridge Creek rose over 15 feet, tearing out old buildings and leaving mud marks high on the tree trunks. Footbridges were swept away, and when the water receded, the steeper canyon walls in the Aptos Creek canyon were
scoured clean of vegetation.
After the storm, the park was closed for almost a full calendar year. It took several weeks to repair and replace the trails that had been lost. The Aptos Creek trail was the most heavily damaged, and was not back in good repair until 1986.
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