There’s a secret again door to Muir Woods Nationwide Monument that almost all guests don’t know about — and it’s assured to please hikers who uncover it.
For those who park excessive above the 554-acre protect on Mount Tamalpais’ Panoramic Freeway, simply throughout the road from the scenic Mountain Dwelling Inn, you possibly can embark on a evenly trafficked footpath down into these famed redwood groves. It’s a two to 3 hour, 5-mile hike in all and an wonderful, nearly magical journey again in time to a spot the place a few of Northern California’s few remaining previous development coast redwoods (sequoia sempervirens) thrive.
Mountain climbing the Cover View path from Mount Tam is type of an Alice in Wonderland expertise.
As a substitute of falling down a rabbit gap, you stroll south on the car-free Alice Eastwood entry street to the easy-going Panoramic Path, which parallels Mill Valley’s Panoramic Freeway. Persevering with south, you’ll discover a grassy slope coated in coastal scrub and stands of bay and oak, French broom, sticky monkey flower and candy smelling fennel — with the seamless mosaic of the Muir Woods redwood cover spreading out beneath you to the west.
After a few 1/4 mile, flip proper, heading downhill on the Cover View Path, the place a large granite boulder makes an superior perch for panoramic views of Muir Woods and, on fog-free days, the Pacific coast.
Persevering with on, a fast descent brings you into shady groves of California bay laurel, oak and Douglas fir till the redwood forest seems all of a sudden on the junction of the Misplaced Path. The Misplaced Path makes a steep descent into Fern Creek Canyon and the higher reaches of Muir Woods, however it’s finest to proceed straight on the Cover View Path, meandering via the woods to the backside of the canyon.
At every flip, the stately, cinnamon-red sequoia get taller and taller, and the woods get deeper and shadier. As you descend, it’s arduous to keep away from feeling like you're getting smaller and smaller, identical to Alice. If you attain Redwood Creek and the canyon flooring, you’ll be joined by crowds of gobsmacked Lilliputian guests staring in awe on the huge redwoods that soar impossibly excessive overhead.
Regardless of the Alice in Wonderland really feel to the place, don’t count on to come across a fidgety white rabbit or hookah-smoking caterpillar. You’ll probably see a loud black raven or two, chipmunks and squirrels, pileated woodpeckers, robins and Steller’s jays. Bigger animals that inhabit these dense, shady woods — the black-tailed deer, coyote, grey fox, raccoon, noticed owls, skunk, bobcat and others — are largely nocturnal and infrequently seen.
On the junction of the Cover View Path and Redwood Creek path, the park’s essential thoroughfare, you possibly can flip left to move to the Muir Woods guests middle, the place restrooms, a restaurant and a present store with an enormous array of redwood-related knick-knacks await.
Or you possibly can flip proper to observe the Redwood Creek path into the center of Muir Woods. The broad boardwalk path is lined with sword ferns and primitive horsetail, fairy-bells and redwood sorrel — the prolific, clover-like floor protecting of the redwood forest understory. Coho salmon and steelhead trout are seen seasonally, as they're born and spawn on this serene, shady stream.
Redwoods are fascinating survivors from an historic time. They advanced out of the Cypress
household (Cupressaceae) practically 240 million years in the past, overlapping with the age of the dinosaurs. They're the tallest timber on the planet (the tallest is 379 ft) and might be very previous (the oldest redwoods in Muir Woods are 800 to 1,000 years previous, they usually can dwell so long as 2,000 years.)
After they first appeared, this was a really moist, rainforest surroundings, and redwoods forests have been far more frequent and widespread on a number of continents, together with Europe and Asia. Immediately, coast redwoods are discovered solely on the wet, fog-swept coastal mountain vary of Northern California and excessive Southern Oregon.
As a result of they’ve been round so lengthy and thru so many environmental modifications, redwoods have advanced a number of variations — a intelligent bag of methods — that has allowed them to outlive challenges starting from atmospheric change to continental drift, extended intervals of glaciation and drought.
Their fibrous bark is 2 to 12 inches thick and soaked in tannin, a pure fire-retardant and repellant in opposition to bugs and fungi. The timber have three modes of copy: seeds, sprouts from their base root system and gene-rich burls. And they're masters at controlling their surroundings, nurturing fellow timber although a symbiotic subterranean fungi and suppressing the expansion of competing vegetation. Signage on the primary path illustrates a lot of the ecology of the redwood forest.
The Redwood Creek path continues on via Cathedral Grove and previous the Kent Memorial, a salute to landowner William Kent who donated this patch of unlogged, previous development forest to the federal government again in 1908. A lightly-used facet path, the Fern Creek Path, will get you again on single observe grime for a gradual ascent up a serene facet canyon.
On the signed junction with the Misplaced Path, flip proper (uphill) to ascend again to the Cover View Path. Flip left on the Cover View Path junction to return to the place your stroll started, out of the fairytale setting of Muir Woods and, alas, again to civilization.
If You Go
Muir Woods is open from 8 a.m. to eight p.m. day by day at 1 Muir Woods Street in Mill Valley. Park admission is $15 per particular person for ages 16 and up. Until you’re arriving on foot or by bicycle, you’ll want parking ($9) or shuttle ($3.50) reservations, which require planning nicely forward. House is proscribed, and reservations are required year-round. Half the out there reservations are made out there at 9 a.m. 90 days earlier than any given date at https://gomuirwoods.com or by calling 1-800-410-2419. The remaining reservations are launched three days upfront.