Today was my Gray Line trip to the North to see the Muir Woods National Monument and the town of Sausalito on the northern shore of the bay. As I mentioned previously, the departure point for the tour was much closer to my new hotel than to my original hotel, as Pier 41 is just 5 blocks away.
I turned up at 8.45am as recommended for the 9.15am departure to obtain my boarding pass and then had to wait until about 9.25am for the departure after the initial vehicle's brakes were deemed to be dodgy and so a replacement vehicle was sent up from the depot. We were going in a smaller bus, but this was a full size touring coach, which made some of the later manoeuvres more tricky than they would normally have been.
Our driver and guide, Michael, was very friendly and informative and gave us lots of information about the parts of San Francisco that we had to go through to get to the Golden Gate Bridge and then over the bridge itself. It took about half an hour to get to the park, where we had an hour to look at the trees. There are a number of trails of varying lengths and as long as you don't hang about too much, you can easily do the one hour circular walk in the time allotted. The tour group was about 15 people in total. Lots of us took photos of each other at the various points around the trails and also later on in Sausalito too.
Some of the trees had been weakened by severe fires and then hollowed out by normal erosion, leaving almost the entire base of the tree being a hole. This one is a popular spot for photographs.
There were a lot of trees, as you would imagine for a Redwood forest. It was interesting to learn that the reason why this area survived the logging was simply because in the last century, they didn't have the ability to get the cutting equipment into the valley and to get the logs out.
Many of the trees are extremely tall, although the rangers won't tell you which one is the tallest of all, because they don't want people taking samples of its bark home and thus potentially ending up killing it. There were many examples of circles of trees where the middle tree had spawned several new trees before dying itself.
There are several clumps of trees like this all reaching up high with the sunlight filtered heavily giving at best dappled shade. It was all picturesque and after doing the circuit, Michael arrived to collect us all and take us on to our next destination: Sausalito.
I turned up at 8.45am as recommended for the 9.15am departure to obtain my boarding pass and then had to wait until about 9.25am for the departure after the initial vehicle's brakes were deemed to be dodgy and so a replacement vehicle was sent up from the depot. We were going in a smaller bus, but this was a full size touring coach, which made some of the later manoeuvres more tricky than they would normally have been.
Our driver and guide, Michael, was very friendly and informative and gave us lots of information about the parts of San Francisco that we had to go through to get to the Golden Gate Bridge and then over the bridge itself. It took about half an hour to get to the park, where we had an hour to look at the trees. There are a number of trails of varying lengths and as long as you don't hang about too much, you can easily do the one hour circular walk in the time allotted. The tour group was about 15 people in total. Lots of us took photos of each other at the various points around the trails and also later on in Sausalito too.
Some of the trees had been weakened by severe fires and then hollowed out by normal erosion, leaving almost the entire base of the tree being a hole. This one is a popular spot for photographs.
There were a lot of trees, as you would imagine for a Redwood forest. It was interesting to learn that the reason why this area survived the logging was simply because in the last century, they didn't have the ability to get the cutting equipment into the valley and to get the logs out.
Many of the trees are extremely tall, although the rangers won't tell you which one is the tallest of all, because they don't want people taking samples of its bark home and thus potentially ending up killing it. There were many examples of circles of trees where the middle tree had spawned several new trees before dying itself.
There are several clumps of trees like this all reaching up high with the sunlight filtered heavily giving at best dappled shade. It was all picturesque and after doing the circuit, Michael arrived to collect us all and take us on to our next destination: Sausalito.
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