Story and photo by Gareth Kelly

At 14,000 acres, the Santa Margarita ranch dates back to the early 1700s with a long and storied history. Originally as a perfect stopping point between the San Luis Mission and Mission San Miguel, the ranch also has a gold mining history dating back to 1844 when Patrick Murphy began selling goods to the gold miners. In 1861, the PW Murphy Mining Company bought the ranch for $45,000. The Murphy’s were also instrumental in bringing the Southern Pacific Railroad to Santa Margarita.
Fast forward to today and the ranch is owned by Doug Filliponi, Rob Rossi and Karl Wittstrom and is a working cattle ranch, a vineyard and, for the last few years, host to Sunset’s Savor the Central Coast as well as the home of Margarita Adventures providing a zip lining adventure for thrill seekers from far and wide.
Their most recent addition is the construction of replica gold mining camp at the very end of their fifth zip line, the Pinot Express. Daniels Wood Land out of Paso Robles built the mid 1800s themed camp. The company is a star on the popular TV show Redwood Kings on the Animal Planet network.
“We’ve been in business for over 17 years,” said owner, John Daniels, himself a former Cal Poly math lecturer. “We employ around 40 people and have built projects all over the world. In fact we have built more projects in Saudi Arabia than we have in the US. This has been the first project we have built so close to home.”
At over 1800 feet long, the Pinot Express takes riders flying across the ranch and the vineyard below before flying under an old water tank and stopping just short of what looks like the entry to a long dark mining shaft making this zip line the only themed zip line around.
“We started the zip line about three or four years ago to help promote our Ancient Peaks wine label and noticed people were fascinated by the history and the culture of the ranch,” said Karl Wittstrom, managing partner of the ranch. “We hooked up with Daniels Woodland a few months ago and came up with this concept of incorporating California history into our zip line. The camp even though only a few weeks old looks like it has been around for over 100 years. Using materials from both the ranch and the Daniels Wood Land scrap heap the replica is laden with old bits of wood, period tools, a bath tub, an old water tank and numerous ‘Danger’ signs to further enhance the historic ambiance.
“The P.W. Murphy Mining Company is all about bringing California history to life in a memorable way, it’s the ultimate conversation starter about a pivotal period in the history of the Golden State.”
With an additional zip line as well as a high skywalk in the works the ranch is hoping to build on its recent adventure success and continue to put smiles on people’s faces from 3-year-olds all the way up to a recent 93-year-old that now get to zip into history.
The mining camp will be featured in the new season of Redwood Kings on Animal Planet. To find out more about Daniels Wood Land visit them at www.danielswoodland.com or for Margarita Adventure information www.margarita-adventures.com
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