Muir Woods

[gurdymonkey]

Green to sear the eye.
Green to feast on hungrily.
Green to bathe the soul.
I wander among the trees
Bewitched by a thousand greens.


Yesterday, while we were parked on a hillside in Milpitas, katerit someone (I cannot recall who at the moment), said that California should have gotten it's "Golden State" nickname based on the color of those hills instead of because of the Gold Rush. I nodded, Yeah, OK. If you like the late-autumn-mangy-velvet look of parched grass, it's pretty enough, particularly in certain lights. However, last week's Yosemite trip reminded this transplanted easterner that she grew up under big green trees - and missed it.

I overslept this morning. Plainly I needed to. Threw on my clothes, threw lunch and water in a knapsack, wallet, camera, car keys into my belt pack, jumped in the car and made my way across the bay to Marin County. "Highway 1" consists of a narrow, windy 2 lane road that meanders uphill along the edge of Mount Tamalpais until you reach the well marked turnoff for Muir Woods, then go down another even windier 2 lane road to get there. I was late enough that I had to park in the second lot (but not so late that I had to park out on the road). Passed some lovely, twisty, photogenic trees on the way to the gate, Paid $5 at the visitor center, plus another buck for a trail map, as I was toying with doing the hike down to Muir Beach and back depending on how I felt.

The light. The colors. The smell of the place. If heaven doesn't smell like a forest, I'm not going, thank you. I got completely nuts with the camera. COMPLETELY. It's all still downloading. The whole sunlight-and-shade spectrum, I got drunk on it.

Even as the NPS boardwalks and rustic fences shepherd you carefully along a designated loop through the trees, even as you pause politely so somebody can take a picture of their posing family or friends, even as you mentally try to ignore human chatter and know that any sensible wildlife has buggered off for the day away from all these noisy humans, you're in the woods. OLD woods. It's over your head filtering the light, it's under your feet (even if it's only the redwood needles that have fallen onto the boardwalk), it's in your nose.

I couldn't even get too irritated at the senior citizen who just kept repeating, "It's byoodeeful, byoodeeful, honey, isn't it byooodeful?"

Evidently I tweaked my right ankle yesterday, probably on the hike to or from the car in zori at Crown, because I had opted for the two-mile loop through the grove where you climb up to the other side of the creek and take the hillside trail* back, and something didn't feel quite right. (*Very doable, with a short climb up some NPS steps to the upper trail, just don't try to get a stroller up there!)  Between that and my late start in the morning, I decided NOT to try to hike down to Muir Beach and back.

(By the time I left, the loop was fairly mobbed, both parking lots were full, there were cars parked along the road for more than a mile. I would like to go back : if I do, I'll go a LOT earlier. )


More photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/70104978@N00/sets/72157622518840334/

Comments

[firehauke.livejournal.com]

*sigh* Now I miss home. But I have the green, green hills of southwestern NC to come home to.

[katerit.livejournal.com]

That was my statement about the golden hills - my mother has always said this - that it shouldn't be the gold rush but the golden hills that names our state. I love forests too - and I was surprised at the skinny trees back East when I lived there.