https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/12/30/palo-alto-hundreds-from-around-the-region-flooding-into-once-exclusive-foothills-park/ > For decades, an address in one of the Bay Area’s most expensive communities came with exclusive access to a bucolic nature preserve in the Santa Cruz Mountains, a park believed to have been the only one in California to ban non-residents from entering unless escorted. > But the once-quiet 1,400-acre Foothills Park in Palo Alto has been invaded over the past week by tourists from across the Bay Area and beyond after it officially opened to everyone on Dec. 17.