Muir Woods: A Walk Among the Ancients

Orientation at the Manzanita Park & Ride, where every road to Muir Woods converges — meet your rangers, get the plan, and start the drive up the mountain to the old-growth redwoods.

Boone's tale of the Dipsea Race, the oldest trail race in America, run since 1905 from Mill Valley over the shoulder of Mount Tamalpais and down through the Muir Woods country to Stinson Beach.

Climbing Shoreline Highway out of Tam Valley toward Mount Tamalpais — the shift from town to mountain, and the fog-fed watershed that feeds the redwoods ahead.

The turn onto Panoramic Highway along the shoulder of Mount Tamalpais — big views, the first redwoods, and a caution for the narrow winding road.

The key turn at the Four Corners junction from Panoramic Highway onto Muir Woods Road, beginning the winding descent into the redwood canyon.

The final descent down Muir Woods Road to the visitor center — arrival, parking, and the handoff from the drive to the walking loop.

Arrival at the Muir Woods trailhead by the visitor center — the plan for the walking loop through the old-growth coast redwoods, and how the tour follows you on foot.

Quinn's closing as the loop returns to the entrance — thanks for walking along, a last thought on the old-growth forest, and a request for a review.

The first old-growth coast redwoods along the trail — what makes Sequoia sempervirens the tallest tree on Earth, and how to look at one properly.

Boone's tale of William and Elizabeth Kent, who bought Redwood Canyon in 1905 to save it from a dam, gave it to the nation, and refused to let it carry their own name.

Redwood Creek running through the grove — one of the last Bay Area streams where endangered coho salmon and steelhead still spawn, and why the whole forest depends on it.

The survival tricks of the coast redwood — drinking fog from the air, shallow interlocking roots, fireproof tannin-rich bark, and cloning from burls into family circles.

Boone on John Muir — the wandering naturalist the monument was named for, and the letter he wrote calling it the best tree-lovers' monument in all the forests of the world.

Why Muir Woods still exists when nearly every other Bay Area redwood grove was logged — the canyon was too steep and remote to haul timber out of.

The heart of Muir Woods — the tallest and oldest trees, the designated quiet zone, and the hush that gives the grove its name. (Boone's 1945 U.N. memorial tale dwells here.)

Directions at the top of the loop — cross Redwood Creek on Bridge Four and return down the Hillside Trail on the east slope.

The living carpet beneath the redwoods — redwood sorrel, sword ferns, the banana slug, and the spotted owl overhead; the small life that makes the big trees possible.

Boone's deep-time tale — walking a listener through the thousand years of human history that passed while a single Muir Woods redwood stood in one spot.

The view from the Hillside Trail — looking down and across into the redwood crowns, and how these coast redwoods relate to their giant sequoia cousins in the Sierra.

Boone's Hillside Trail tale — the vast Bay Area redwood forests that were logged away in a single generation, and why this one lonely canyon was left standing.