In every walk with nature, one receives far more than one seeks – John Muir

After an appointment in San Francisco last week, my wife and I drove across the Golden Gate Bridge and visited Muir Woods. As you will see from my photos (which only suggest its beauty), it is a wonderful place to visit and we have done so several times. Due to COVID, they have been limiting the number of visitors by requiring a reservation. This enhanced our visit, as it can get crowded (especially on weekends). If you are anywhere near the Bay Area, it is a “must visit” in my opinion. As you will see, a walk through Muir Woods is mostly on paved trails and boardwalks in the main part of the area. However, there are more strenuous trails, one of which is about 5 miles each way to the beach. The primary path is along Redwood Creek and there are numerous bridges across the creek to allow you to determine the length of your walk. I decided to “travel light” and left my DSLR at home and took these photos with my compact Canon G5X Mk II. I took the photos in RAW and processed them in Lightroom; they are best viewed in download.

Muir Woods National Monument is a United States National Monument managed by the National Park Service, named after naturalist John Muir. It is located on Mount Tamalpais near the Pacific coast, in southwestern Marin County, California. It is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and is 12 miles north of San Francisco. It protects 554 acres, of which 240 acres are old growth coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) forests, one of a few such stands remaining in the San Francisco Bay Area. An interesting note about Mt. Tamalpais, is that it and the surrounding area is considered the birthplace of modern mountain biking in the 1970s.

One hundred fifty million years ago ancestors of redwood and sequoia trees grew throughout the United States. Today, the Sequoia sempervirens can be found only in a narrow, cool coastal belt from Monterey County, California, in the south to Oregon in the north.

Before the logging industry came to California, there were an estimated 2 million acres (8,000 km2) of old growth forest containing redwoods growing in a narrow strip along the coast. By the early 20th century, most of these forests had been cut down. Just north of the San Francisco Bay, one valley named Redwood Canyon remained uncut, mainly due to its relative inaccessibility.

This was noticed by William Kent, a rising California politician who would soon be elected to the U.S. Congress. He and his wife, Elizabeth Thacher Kent, purchased 611 acres of land from the Tamalpais Land and Water Company for $45,000 with the goal of protecting the redwoods and the mountain above them. The deal was facilitated by banker Lovell White and his activist wife, Laura Lyon White.

In 1907, a water company in nearby Sausalito planned to dam Redwood Creek, thereby flooding the valley. When Kent objected to the plan, the water company threatened to use eminent domain and took him to court to attempt to force the project to move ahead. Kent sidestepped the water company's plot by donating 295 acres of the redwood forest to the federal government, thus bypassing the local courts.

On January 9, 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt declared the land a national monument, the first to be created from land donated by a private individual. The original suggested name of the monument was the Kent Monument but Kent insisted the monument be named after naturalist John Muir, whose environmental campaigns helped to establish the National Park system. President Roosevelt agreed, writing back:

My Dear Mr. Kent: By George you are right!

Kent and Muir had become friends over shared views of wilderness preservation, but Kent's later support for the flooding of Hetch Hetchy caused Muir to end their friendship. In December 1928, the Kent Memorial was erected at the Kent Tree in Fern Canyon. This tree—a Douglas fir, not a redwood—was said to be Kent's favorite. Due to its height of 280 feet (85 m) and location on a slope, the tree leaned towards the valley for more than 100 years. Storms in El Niño years of 1981 and 1982 caused the tree to tilt even more and took out the top 40 feet (12 m) of the tree. During the winter of 2002–03, many storms brought high winds to Muir Woods causing the tree to lean so much that a fissure developed in January 2003. This fissure grew larger as the tree slowly leaned more and more, forcing the closure of some trails. On March 18, 2003, at around 8:28 pm, the tree fell, damaging several other trees nearby. The closed trails have since been reconfigured and reopened.

In 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge was completed and park attendance tripled, reaching over 180,000. Muir Woods is one of the major tourist attractions of the San Francisco Bay Area, with 776,000 visitors in 2005.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, shortly before he was to have opened the United Nations Conference on International Organization for which delegates from 50 countries met in San Francisco to draft and sign the United Nations Charter. On May 19, the delegates held a commemorative ceremony in tribute to his memory in Muir Woods' Cathedral Grove, where a dedication plaque was placed in his honor. The monument was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 9, 2008.

Uncounted business and pleasure trips to Northern CA. But, I sadly have never made it to the John Muir park.

Another side to your narrative. As a rockhound, I purchased a slate (formerly mud) impression of a metasequoia tree frond/fern in this general area of N. CA. Metasequoias were the great grandparents of the Sequoias. They were old before the dinosaurs walked the Earth. But, like the dinos, when the meteorite hit the Yucatan peninsula, 90+ % of all species on Earth were made extinct and died off. My specimen of a California Metasequoia was proof that they once lived and thrived in California. But, I knew nothing about this tree species for several more years.

Fast forward. I'm attending the Atlanta Botanical Gardens and suddenly see 2 trees unlike any others in this nature garden of metro Atlanta. They look dramatically different from other trees, and these were about 35'-40' tall. I looked at the 'species' ID tag and was astounded to see that these trees were Metasequoias. I thought they had all died out with the dinosaurs, about 65 million years ago! - just like my California fossil plate!

It seems that, in 1945, biologists got special permission from the (Communist) Chinese Government to search and survey more remote areas of China to find rare/unusual/unique varieties of plant life. They arrived in a small valley in a remote China location. Within this valley, they found the only living acreage of metasequioa trees to have survived the 'great extinction' of 65 million years before! The Atlanta Botanical Society got their tree specimens from this site. Soon, in tree years, there were Metasequoia trees growing in many areas of the USA and other temperate countries around the world. (Two, that I purchased as 10-12 year old trees in 1986 are growing in my suburban ATL front yard. They are about 40 feet tall, now. I hope they will out live me. - They may grow to 80'-200' at full maturity.)

And, I hope others will want to buy Metasequoia seedlings or seeds to re-populate America and other temperate areas around the world that once were native locations for these wonderful trees. (Who will anonymously help to re-populate California with Metasequoias, the same as Sequoias? I hope several will decide to be one of my childhood heroes of Ohio history - "Johnny Appleseed".) - All materials available on the internet!!!

My father built balsa wood gasoline planes at the time when they flew in a circle, tethered to a central control ring or by hand controller. My father was an engineer. We didn't join the leading/bleeding edge of RC planes including the renegades who would put .22 cal. barrels under the wings of the planes to shoot down competitors. - Somehow, I couldn't get myself involved enough to go forward in this direction. Must find another home for the '80s balsa wood plane kit that remains unopened in the basement. Wonder if anyone would be interested in it or a black powder flintlock kit?

I've collected too much in a lifetime. And, I don't regret most of them. It's another way of saying that my basement will never 'fly away' in a tornado.

A few metasequoia seeds can help create a 'revolution' during the generations in the future. If the National Park Service can arbitrarily repopulate Yellowstone with Wolves, can't we repopulate Yosemite and California/Oregon/Washington with their native Metasequoias of 65 million years ago? I might get into volunteering seeds or offering them for the cost of shipping. But, there are many other online sources of seeds and seedlings. In GA, we have trees in urban and suburban locations that can be seen online.

Remind me to share a story about a trip to Big Sur in the mid-70s. In my family room, I have a 3 inch thick 5.5'x7'+ redwood tree slab coffee table from Big Sur, sitting on Cedar Knee Roots, along with matching end tables.