Discover the Wonders of Nature:

San Francisco, the Muir Woods, the Park, and Other Things

By Kathleen Little - Traveling

It’s 9:30 am on a Monday in Chinatown. Voices in Cantonese rise above the foggy din of distant cable car bells and boisterous car stereos.  I am awakened by this cacophony to the sight of my dear friend/travel companion, Chelsea, frantically packing our San Francisco hotel room. Our tiny 5th-floor domicile is littered with scarves, a few empty take-out boxes, carry-ons, various oddities, and a bright red Chinese parasol. Shoving dresses and souvenirs into a duffle bag, she speaks over her shoulder to me. 

“We have a rental car coming to get us at checkout so that we can go to the Muir Woods before we go to the airport,” she reminds me of this as I toss childishly in my single bed. This is her kind way of saying, “Get up!” Check-out is at 11 AM and I consider whether I can postpone the departure or convince Chelsea that we should book another night so that we can rest until our red-eye flight home at 11:55 PM. But I knew very well that she wouldn’t go for the idea of dim sum and naps when we could traipse through the redwoods. So I mustered my last-day-of-a-trip energy, ignoring my total lack of sleep, to go discover the wonders of nature with one of my favorite people. 

We had come to San Francisco with the initial purpose of seeing the last two nights of our favorite band, Dead and Company (the latest iteration of Grateful Dead) on their farewell tour. We are usually responsibility-driven mothers and career women in our 30’s, but this was our “girls' trip” and a well-deserved respite. After a few years of personal triumphs and tragedies, we decided that we should release our guilt and go be “ourselves” for a spell. 

We spent the two days before the shows exploring the urban atmosphere of Chinatown’s red lanterned and gilded alleys, North Beach’s beatnik mavens, Haight-Ashbury’s hippie hideaways, Sausalito’s charms, and the antique arcades of the waterfront. Quite to my surprise, unlike many large U.S. cities, San Francisco is FULL of green areas to explore nature. 

On our first full day in the city, after spending a few hours on Haight Street, we floated down the Panhandle and into Golden Gate Park (which I was surprised to learn is twice the size of New York’s Central Park). Our original intention was to visit the Botanical Gardens, but we discovered ourselves distracted by miles of paths, gardens, plants, clearings, and groves. We examined acres of well-chosen flora that lined our paths and used cellphone apps to identify the types of plants we were seeing and smelling. Sage, lavender, mint, rosemary, mugwort, and wild thyme wafted through the park. The lush grasses were thick and velvety, just perfect for walking through barefoot. By the time we made it to the botanical gardens, we had walked happily for miles to find that the facility was closed. So instead, we sunbathed on the lawn near the conservatory with dozens of other San Franciscans who had come out to enjoy the perfect, sunny 70-degree day. 

On our second day of the trip, we shortly perused the Fisherman’s Wharf before embarking on a ferry to Marin County. It was on this trip that we learned of a Muir Woods excursion by bus that would pick up visitors from our intended port. We also discovered the severity of the San Francisco Bay microclimate. One side of the bay is calm, warm, and inviting, while on the other shores, it is choppy, brisk, and rude. We left San Francisco in sassy waters, but found ourselves in the gentile repose of Sausalito, the fair lady town across the bay, where we explored the history and houseboats of a bygone era. We decided that we would save the Muir Woods for our last day before heading to the airport.

After our first couple days of exploration, we spent two days and nights exploring the fairgrounds of Oracle Park Stadium and taking in the last incredible tour dates of Dead and Company. This is another story unto itself about friendship, magic, and music. 

When the two days of concert festivities were done, and we checked out of our hotel (I did finally get up), we made our way back to Marin County via our rental car. The illustrious Golden Gate Bridge, mysterious vixen that she is, managed to evade us in her fog for the majority of our vacation but was exposed by our trespass. We were so happy. As we crossed the bay, we opened the car windows and sang out, “California! Prophet on the golden shore! California! I’ll be knocking on your golden door!”

After a short, picturesque drive, we made it to our destination. The Muir Woods National Historic Site was named in honor of influential conservationist John Muir in 1908 by President Theodore Roosevelt. Muir himself was paramount in protecting and preserving natural landscapes across the United States. The initial park land of 295 acres had been a gift from William and Elizabeth Kent who had used it as a redwood retreat. Of course the original occupants, the indigenous Coast Miwok people, had lived on these lands for thousands of years. They considered the redwoods a sacred gift from the gods, gathered medicines in the forest, and held rituals in the groves. 

Today, the park spans over 560 acres and draws in over half a million visitors each year. It is one of the last old-growth coastal redwood forests left on the planet. A litany of beautiful, and in some cases endangered, species like the Northern Spotted Owl, Coho Salmon, Sonoma Chipmunks, Banana Slugs, Winter Wrens, and many more call these woods home. (We had the luck of spotting a Black-Tailed Mule Deer drinking from a brook as soon as we parked our car.) The site is also lush with all varieties of vegetation, including mammoth redwoods and several varieties of ferns. The Muir Woods is also a mushroom mecca, boasting over 200 species. 

Walking into the park doesn’t seem real. It feels like perhaps a dinosaur could stomp around the corner, or maybe you could happen upon a hobbit. The trees are so awe-inspiring and enormous, some as tall as 250 feet. The oldest tree there is 1200 years old. To put that into perspective, it was 400 years old when the Magna Carta was drafted and Genghis Khan was invading China. Even the light through the trees is magical and green. 

As we meandered down the boardwalk and through the forest, I heard voices in the stream calling off numbers to one another in a fashion reminiscent of river boaters calling “Mark Twain!” on the Mississippi. When we rounded the bend, I observed a team of park workers in waders and asked about their activities. The team explained that at the time of the park’s conception, engineers had erroneously believed that using large boulders to fill the streams in the park would help to stabilize the walkways and paths. With time, these original paths were abandoned in place of a wooden, raised boardwalk that would not interrupt the natural decay of the redwoods’ organic floor and ecosystem. It was also discovered that the shallowed streams were inhibiting the natural spawning of Coho Salmon. The numbers they were calling out were cataloging the types and amounts of indigenous plants that they were harvesting and preserving. Once the streams have been dredged, those plants can be replanted in order to promote Coho spawning and repopulation. They are eager to host the regained population of salmon and observe/learn from their patterns in a gentle and uninhibitive nature. 

We could have spent an entire day there, but we decided to press on driving up to the Muir Beach overlook for a spectacular view up the coast toward Stinson Beach and down toward San Francisco. It was a beautiful panoramic and a lovely way to bid our vacation fare thee well. 

On the way to the airport, we stopped in the city to waste a little time. We ended up just having a seat outside and talking about what we had learned on the trip and what lessons we wanted to bring home. We mentioned things like “facing fears”, “eating a California diet”, “the real meaning of family”, “developing greener thumbs”, and “checking to see if your hotel has late check-out or a baggage holding policy.” I’d also add that the Muir Woods taught me that it’s never too late to see the puzzle for its pieces, to admit that you didn’t have all of the evidence, or to correct what you once did incorrectly. 

It’s been three weeks since the trip and it is still all that Chelsea and I can talk about. I did end up starting to eat healthier, am growing more plants, and am facing some of my fears. Chelsea is exploring her goals too, and after 12 years of friendship, we couldn’t be more like family. I’m glad the best souvenirs from the trip weren’t the giant Chinese parasol I lugged around two airports or the hippie bracelets from Haight Street. It was the memories, secrets, and struggles we worked through on our way. We didn’t leave our hearts in San Francisco. We left with San Francisco in ours.