by Dominic Vautier
4/2017
During summers the Richmond seminarians spent their time at camp Don Bosco at Bonnie Doon, California located in the cascades northeast of Santa Cruz. We had a swimming pool and lots of hiking and camp fires. I spent two years there:
There were 7 cabins plus a big camp fire pit and lots of poison oak.
Our favorite hike was down the creek to Davenport on the coast and then back to camp. It was not a long hike, maybe 10 miles but involved some serious rock climbing especially up and through the creek rocks and boulders. I think the creek was called mill creek but nobody knew.
In those days aspirants seemed to have a perverse way to devise the most difficult or impossible hikes imaginable. The most malicious of these was called the "Santa Cruz Death March" which consisted of following mill creek down to Davenport, walking the long hot highway one into Santa Cruz, visiting the boardwalk, and going back up the steep road back to Bonnie Doone. the "Death March" conveniently provided a lag wagon that would make several trips picking up exhausted stragglers along the way. It was a 30 mile hike. I did it only once which was quite enough for me.