I’ll be driving to Santa Cruz in the next couple weeks to check it out, and I want to ride some of the MUni trails that will most likely be part of this year’s CMW.
I would really appreciate it if anyone who knows this area would be so kind as to tell me the location/directions to these trails. 
I’m coming from the Los Angeles area. Mapquest tells me it’s about 350 miles away; less than half that of Moab!
I don’t know which trails exactly are planned for CMW, but we’ve had “organized” rides almost every weekend lately. The e-mail list is probably the best way to find out about the trails and plan some dates to ride with us: http://lists.bluetreesoft.com/mailman/listinfo/muni
yup, the muni list is the best way to find out about rides ---- feel free to email it anytime. or contact me as i organize most of the rides, and i’m hosting muni weekend this year in santa cruz.
muni weekend dates: 0ct 12 - 14th.
From what I reasearched online, these are the trails I found in Santa Cruz: (Most are described as “beginners”, “something for everyone” and mostly singletrack.) Are there any more advanced, technical trails with mostly rocky terrain? That’s more what I’m looking for.
DeLaveaga Park
Pogonip Park
UCSC
Forest of Nisene Marks State Park
Soquel Demonstration State Park
Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park
Big Basin State Park
Long Ridge Open Space Preserve
Saratoga Gap Open Space PreserveThe Soquel Demonstration State Park (AKA Soquel Demo Forest) holds the gnarliest and longest trails in the area. Corbin and I are definitely including the park’s “Braille trail” in this year’s CMW. It features nearly 2k feet of descent over several miles, with stunts, steeps, drops and rocks galore. We measure our rides on this trail in “smiles per hour”… and it always delivers big numbers.
There are many fun and technical rides in the Pogonip / UCSC area but unfortunately most of the trails are illegal… one of the legal trails will be used for a Coker ride in this year’s CMW, but it’s mostly fire road… not as fun for muni.
The other areas listed in your post are largely multi-use areas where some hiking trails are also open to bikers… not exactly thrilling terrain but beautiful rides nonetheless.
If you come up this way, you might want to come to the East Bay (about an hour from SCruz) and sample our trails in Joaquin Miller; we’ve got some fairly gnarly singletrack that will be featured in the Berkeley Juggling+Unicycle Festival the week before CMW.
The predominant MUni terrain in northern CA consists of redwood duff and roots; it’s a lot different than what you tend to have down south. The drops usually aren’t as large but the good rides tend to be very technical, with complex sequences of roots and rocks with limited traction.
Gah! So corny but so intriguing at the same time!