Muir Woods is a deep valley on the south side of Mt. Tamalpais, a federal enclave largely surrounded by the state park; it is notable for containing one of the most beautiful stands of redwood in the southern part of the range still occupied by the coast redwood, sequoia sempervirens. The area passed through several sets of hands before William Kent finally deeded it to the federal government (Kent was also responsible for much of the other land in this area being publicly owned; he and the U.S. Army between them probably saved West Marin from becoming a dormitory city, aka suburbia). At one point the Bohemian Club intended to turn part of this beautiful valley into their private clubhouse, a historical footnote still commemorated in the name of Muir Woods' Bohemian Grove of redwoods (the Bohemians eventually moved north to the Russian River country where they still meet under tight security every summer and decide the fate of the world, or perhaps the universe). I like the place -- there are several nice hikes out of the valley and up to the Pan Toll area, included the Dipsea Trail, along which the famous annual run from Mill Valley to Stinson Beach takes place -- but am usually unwilling to battle the hordes of automobiles, vans and buses that clog the parking lot every weekend; Muir Woods is one of the most popular sights for visitors from out of state and out of country.
No problem on Saturday, Feb. 3; the weather was cloudy, with drizzle -- I drove up from Mill Valley through dense fog, and then down into Muir Woods the same way. There were even spaces left in the main parking lot -- people didn't yet have to go on down the road to the overflow parking lot.
We arrived a bit early and visited the new visitor center, which I had not seen before. The center contains the usual selection of books and slides, perhaps a bit more extensive than you will find in other places (a huge monograph about the Miwok people attracted me, but its $50 price put it a bit out of my range). I did end up buying copies of John Muir's My First Summer in the Sierra (a very enjoyable, if short, book) and his The Mountains of California (haven't finished it yet as of this writing); maybe Project Gutenberg can bring them on-line. The first of the two is published by the Sierra Club, the second by Ten Speed Press in Berkeley. The visitor center also offers that finest of all amenities for a wet day -- a log fire in a fireplace. That came in handy later ...
Eventually we met Tim and Tracy from Vancouver, B.C., and Josh, who lives in San Francisco, and set out north along the paved trail that leads up the stream canyon through the dense groves of redwoods and the even denser brush of what appears to be a typical temperate rain forest -- the rain-forest nature of the area even more pronounced on this cloudy, drizzly day.
Not too many steps brought us to the open area below the souvenir shop-cafeteria combo. Here, between two posts, a cross-section of a redwood is mounted. As we approached from the direction of the parking lot, Josh wondered amusedly why there weren't any little labels dating the tree rings by historical events -- just a few signs describing the various types of sequoia in California -- and I directed him to the other side, where he foundd just such labels. The tree appeared to date from the tenth century, and to have been cut down in the 1930's (I got these absolute dates from the signs, not from the rings; rings date a tree only relative to its birth date or the date on which it fell).
We continued on up the canyon to another great tree, the Pinchot Tree, where a ranger was supposed to give a fifteen-minute lecture on Muir Woods, trees, and ecology. The "ranger" turned out to be an intern, but he did a very creditable job, and not only knew where to stand so that he would keep dry, but how to face us so that we would have to stand in the water falling from the needles of the trees around us.
The intern described to us the history of the area as I did above (he left out the Bohemian Club), and discussed other matters of interest -- the role that fire plays in allowing new trees to develop from seeds, the role of burls in creating new trees as buds off old trees, how the trees get the hundred gallons of water a day they need to survive (they condense mist on certain needles and then drip-irrigate themselves -- a process we were all learning to understand first-hand as we stood there). All in all, a very interesting, if wet, talk. (The intern, in asking how many types of sequoia are found in California, mentioned sequoia sempervirens, the tall coastal redwood, and sequoiadendron gigantea, the massive Sierra redwood, but failed to mention the Chinese metasequoia, a relatively nondescript conifer of which a few specimens are found in this state and elsewhere in the country -- I found one in my uncle's yard once.)
Once the intern had finished his talk, we went on north along the trail until we reached bridge 3, then crossed Redwood Creek and followed it back downstream through the rain forest to a bridge opposite the souvenir shop. Eventually we finished up our hike in the visitor center in front of the fire, where our companions succeeded in drying themselves out somewhat.
All in all, I recommend at least one visit to Muir Woods on such a day. Not only do you avoid the crowds that swarm all over the place on sunny days, but you also see the rain forest as it should really be seen -- deep green and dripping under a cloudy sky. The intern also pointed out in his talk that the forest truly becomes three-dimensional on such a day: the distinction between shorter trees, whose tops are clearly seen, and taller trees, whose tops are hazed out, becomes far more obvious than on a clear, sunlit day when the taller trees' tops are as easily seen as those of the shorter trees.
Don Harlow
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The adjoining map is excerpted from "A Rambler's Guide to the Trails of Mt. Tamalpais and the Marin Headlands", 6th ed., published by The Olmsted &Bros. Map Co., P.O. Box 5351, Berkeley CA 94705, tel. +1-510-658-6534. Cost of the entire map is currently 5.95 $US. |
Don Harlow <donh@netcom.com>