For the last few days of our Crater Lake trip we had planned on coming down the California coast, staying in Bodega Bay and visiting the Muir Woods National Monument. But the hair raising drive from 101 to the coast had so completely shaken me, that we decided it was best to just drive on home.
On Friday we decided to drive from home to Muir Woods by car. It's just north of San Francisco, about two hours from us, but we have never been there.
Muir Woods is the place where people who are visiting the city from other parts of the country go to see the redwoods.
There are other places, Redwood National Park (up north) and Yosemite National Park are two others. Each is a very special place. Muir has some very beautiful old growth groves.
I was surprised by how many people were there on a non-holiday Friday. The parking lots were full, and we ended up parking along the road over a mile away from the visitor's entrance center.
Most of the people seemed to stay in an area near the entrance. There is a nice "civilized" two mile loop trail with boardwalks, wide level paths, and informative signs. The guide that was given to us at the entrance didn't have much information about other trails, but I had done a little research and printed a trail map that included a larger area before we went. Based on it, we were able to find our way to a much-less-traveled loop of trails. Including the walk back to the car, my pedometer measured our hike at 7.4 miles.
The first trail we took was called "Ocean View" but we decided it should have been called the "Root Trail".
From Craig (sign of the day from the visitor center at Muir Woods National Monument): "Due to fire prevention, the Ocean View Trail no longer has a view of the ocean."
Part of our route took us along the edge of a fairly busy road because the linking trails within the park were closed. (No photos. Imagine walking the white line at the edge of a curvy highway with very narrow shoulders.)
Once back into the forest we were delighted by its beauty. After crossing many bridges, Craig said we should have been counting them because there were so many. Some were new, and some had been there for a long, long time.
One thing I like about the trails in National Parks/Monuments is the little helping elements here and there. Such as these stairs in the middle of the forest!
Many of the large trees had hollowed out centers from past fires.
Craig enjoyed exploring them. I had to laugh at him because before he went into a tree, he poked a stick in and asked: "Is anyone in there?" I guess they looked like good places for bears or sleeping raccoons.
Muir Woods National Monument is a good place for hiking, once you get away from the crowded central area. The trees may be more impressive at Redwoods National Park, but it's so much farther away from civilization that the two sites come out about even.
From Craig: we started Sat July 14 by driving down to the Linda Bird Johnson Memorial Redwood Grove. This may have been my favorite thing on our trip (Merikay's is Crater Lake). The trees were less dense and had less undergrowth than other sites, allowing one to appreciate each tree for itself. Plus the fog/mist was clearing overhead in the latter half of our walk, so that the sunlight through the trees produced many amazing scenes of the type that I think of as "shafts of gold from heaven". #$%^*, I left the camera in the RV so you will just have to take our word for it!
Back to Merikay: Craig without a camera is like a pizza without cheese. We drove back to the RV park to get it before going on with the day.
Camera aboard, we retraced our steps and went to explore a park area called Fern Canyon which was at the end of an eight mile gravel park/beach road. As we drove across three or four running streams without bridges, I once again wondered if our choice of an Accent was smart! But we made it without damage so I guess it was OK.
It was well worth the ride! The fifty foot tall walls of the canyon along a winding stream are covered with many ferns and dripping with small waterfalls. Some of the scenes from "The Lost World: Jurassic Park", BBC's "Walking with Dinosaurs", and "Dinosaurs Alive" were filmed here. It really did feel like a prehistoric world, except for all the other tourists and the strategically placed wood planks in the steam bed! This is as much a "must see" as the big trees.
Speaking of which, here is another one we stopped to see.
Herds of elk make their home in the parks, meadows and front yards along Highway 101 in Del Norte county, California. Wherever they decide to graze cars full of tourists pull off the road to gawk and take pictures.
We were among them.
We ended our third week of this trip with another nice evening visiting with our Alfa Gold neighbors.
I could really get to like this.
Today (Friday the 13th) we drove south from the Oregon Caves to Klamath, CA, on the ocean within the overall Redwoods National Park. The Klamath are a Native American tribe that live in both states. After several days of 96 degrees near the end of the day, in Klamath the high today was about 65. In the Bay Area we call this "marine influence".
Our new home is Mystic Forest RV park on US 101. What a difference! Civilization! Good Verizon signal and Internet access.
Shortly after starting out we found ourselves following an Alfa Gold coach. When they pulled off into a rest stop after the CA border, we followed them in and found ourselves one of 3 adjacent Alfa RVs in the parking lot. Not bad for a company that went out of business in '08...
We got to talking to the owners of the Gold and now they're parked next to us at Mystic Forest. We spent the evening with them and enjoyed gabbing like long lost friends. RV people are so easy to be with!
We got settled in our site, and then went to see a nearby tourist trap called Trees of Mystery. First reaction was "what's the need for a commercial site about trees inside Redwoods National Park?"
We will checkout some of the rest of the NP tomorrow. I count this as research into "tourist gift shops."
There were some good trees.
About halfway through their tourist walk we took a gondola-lift several hundred feet up the mountain. Made us feel like we should have brought our skis.
We opted to walk back down. I hadn't brought my poles with me, but they had a barrel of "loaner" natural walking sticks. Good thing because the path was steep and slippery. At one point I took a tumble but was not hurt. Craig of course was right there with the camera.
Redwoods are not new to us. We have several growing on our land, but we have never seen the old growth coastal giants. We will be exploring more in the next few days.
Until then, things are looking up!
