Byways Around San Francisco Bay

by William E. Hutchinson

June, to me, is one of the most fascinating months in California—if any of them can be set apart and called more perfect than another—for June is a month of moods.

If you are an Easterner you would abandon your proposed picnic party, upon rising in the morning, for fear of rain, and, being a tenderfoot, you would be justified, for the clouds—or, more properly speaking, the high fog—give every indication of a shower. But an old Californian would tell you to take no thought of appearances, and to leave your umbrella and raincoat at home, for this is one of nature's "bluffs"; by ten o'clock the sun will be shining brightly, and the fog dispersed under its warm rays.

Then pack your lunch basket, don your khaki suit, and strike out on the trail, while the dew still twinkles on the grass blades like cut diamonds, and the birds are singing their Te Deum to the morning sun.

It was on just such a day that we set out on a trip to Muir Woods and the giant sequoias, one of the most beautiful spots in the State. From Mill Valley the climb is a steep one, passing the picturesque ruins of an old mill erected in 1843. We come to a sort of corduroy path, where some enterprising landowner has placed logs across the trail, with the object of facilitating travel. It is not a very decided improvement on nature, however, for the steps are too far apart for comfort.

Summer cottages are scattered along the trail, perched on the hillside, and placed in the most advantageous position to gain a view of the bay, or on slightly higher ground, where they peek over the tops of the trees into the valley below.

After a stiff climb we reach the top of the last range of hills and begin our descent into the valley, where Muir Woods nestles between the hills at the foot of Mount Tamalpais, in the beautiful Sequoia Cañon. We look away to the right and can see the heavy clouds envelop the summit of the mountain, but the highest stands above the clouds, and the sun touches its stately crest with golden splendor.

The forest always has a weird fascination for me, with its soft whisperings, as if the trees were confiding secrets to each other. One can become intimately acquainted with it, and learn to love its quiet solitude, only by living in or near it, and wandering at will through its trackless, leaf-carpeted aisles. Your eyes must be trained to constant watching, you must learn to be a close observer, to note the flowers, vines, and tangled shrubbery that are seldom mentioned by botanists, and your ear must be tuned to catch the elfin music that is heard within the confines of the forest. You cannot travel a rod under the trees without being watched by the small forest inhabitants, who regard you with suspicion, and peer at you from under decaying logs or leafy covert like self-appointed detectives.

Muir Woods comprises nearly three hundred acres, the principal trees being laurel, fir, oak, redwood, and madrone, of which the giant redwood (Sequoia) predominates. The redwoods in Muir Woods are thousands of years old, and rise from two to three hundred feet in air. The bark is from one to two feet in thickness, of a cinnamon color, and the base of the largest trees from twenty-five to thirty feet in diameter. A clear and cold mountain brook runs through the forest, and ferns grow in rich profusion along its margin, some of them reaching a height of six feet.

One cannot but note the profound quiet of the forest, as if these mighty trees that had withstood the storms of centuries were afraid their secrets might be wrested from them.