Hugging Trees

For this short trip to the bay area we had two goals. Hit the beach, and see the redwoods. Well, mission accomplished! Today we visited Muir Woods National Monument, the nearest fedwood forest to bay area. And, while crazy packed, it was awesome. There's a main, paved trail that is even handicap accessible, but there are a number of side trails that are quite excellent. In our hiking today we covered at least five miles through various trails, and we are pooped!

A few recommendations if you ever decide to visit. Take the shuttle. Parking is atrociously inadequate. Whatever reason you think you need your car for, you're wrong, and you'll regret not taking the shuttle (we did). Spend very little time on the paved trail. The tourists hit the paved trailed heavy, and it detracts from the experience. We LOVED the Ocean View trail. The incline was steep at times, but it was a beautiful, well shaded (thus comfortable), and there are plenty of amazing sights. Even though the redwoods at Muir Woods are not as old or as big as at other places in Northern California (so I've heard), you'll spend a half day trying to get to those places instead of an hour or so, and the redwoods at Muir are still very old (a thousand years in some cases) and very amazing to see. We have no regrets about our choice. In fact, we'd love to go back and hike the beach trail all the way to the main park.


We stopped at the Golden Gate Bridge on the way to Muir Woods.



Here's the family in front of some redwoods.



Darby's self-proclaimed goal today was to "hug a tree". Well, mission accomplished.



The family at the top of the Ocean View trail. If you look carefully, off in the distance you can see the ocean between the tops of the mountains and the sky.