Muir Woods National Monument

2015.09.24

I have seen a lot of information about giant trees in recent years, but I could not imagine how it would feel to see such a tree in person. Therefore, I was really looking forward to visiting Muir Woods National Monument since it would be the first giant tree forest that I had ever seen.

The National Park Service website said parking was limited so they recommend that travelers visit the park in the early morning. As I mentioned in the traveling note of Muir Beach Overlook, my schedule was delayed so there were a lot of cars parking along the road side when I arrived. Fortunately, I still found a parking place in the nearest parking lot.

I looked around in the visitor center for books, postcards and souvenirs, then showed the ranger my annual pass which allowed me to enter the park at no additional cost. I bought two brochures in the visitor center, one elaborated the history of the Historic Walking Tour and the other talked about the ecosystems and features about the trails. Since my time was limited, I only hiked on an easy level trail---Historic Walking Tour, which started from a rustic log gate by the visitor center.

The rustic log gate is a reconstruction of the 1934 original.

The History of Muir Woods National Monument

Before the 1800s, a lot of redwood forests blanketed many northern California coastal valleys and the Muir Woods National Monument is one of them. Because the valley here is isolated and difficult to access, it protected the trees from logger until the early 20th century. Then in 1905, when the development of new logging technology threatened the forest, a prominent businessman named William Kent and his wife Elizabeth Thacher Kent bought this redwood-filled canyon to protect one of the last uncut stands of redwoods. Two years later, the North Coast Water Company tried to obtain title to the land by eminent domain, hoping to build a dam and reservoir. To stop this maneuver, they donated the land to the federal government and proposed changing the area to a national monument. Gifford Pinchot, the first director of the U.S. Forest Service, recommended Kent's proposal to President Roosevelt, who used the 1906 Antiquities Act to sign an executive order creating the national monument on January 9, 1908. Kent proposed that the area be named in honor of conservationist and writer John Muir, who was the mutual friend of the President and Kent. Kent later served in Congress, and in 1916 he introduced legislation that created the National Park Service in 1916.

John Muir later wrote to William Kent, saying "This is the best tree-lover's monument that could possibly be found in all the forests of the world. You have done me great honor, and I am proud of it."

This tree is dedicated to Gifford Pinchot

A sprout of the redwood

Thick bark

It looked like they were having a "high"-level meeting

Looking redwood from a triangle

Bohemian Grove

California's renowned Bohemian Club held its annual midsummer encampment on this spot in September 1892. The Bohemian Club was founded in San Francisco in 1872 as a men's club. Its original membership consisted of newspapermen, artists, actors, and musicians. By the 1880s, newer members included bankers, politicians, and railroad tycoons. Each summer they met outdoors to camp, drink, play cards, listen to music, and perform plays. To prepare for the event, club members built a road into the canyon, set up camping and dining facilities, and created a large amphitheater complete with log seating. A low wall topped by colored lanterns surrounded the amphitheater and formal entrance-way. The amphitheater was called "Bohemia's Redwood Temple," and it was dominated by a 70-foot-high plaster statue of Buddha which was modeled after the famous thirteenth-century bronze Buddha in Kamakura, Japan. Although the Buddha did not last, the legacy of the encampment lives on in the grove's name.  

Redwood burl

As America's tenth national monument, Muir Woods National Monument was the first privately owned natural resource which was protected by federal law. The successful action inspired the creation of the 80,400-acre Golden Gate National Parks.

Muir Beach Overlook

2015.09.24

After I left Battery Spencer, I drove to the Muir Beach Overlook. The road to the Muir Beach Overlook was very narrow and it meandered to the Pacific Ocean. Since my schedule was a little bit delayed, the thought of skipping it crossed my mind. However, to avoid regretting it later, I still made my way there and it was totally worth it! I stood on the edge of the bluff, seeing far to the direction of Taiwan, thinking about my family and friends there. Time does fly! It had been more than two years after I left the 48 contiguous United States!

Muir Beach

This in-and-out, scalloped coastline holds clues to both ancient and ongoing stories. It contains coastal bluffs, rocky coastline, sandy beaches, mountain ridges, valleys, and peninsulas extending out into the sea. Each part tells a geologic tale.

The Rocks

Sticking out of the water, near shore, jagged "sea stacks" of hard basalt have endured pounding waves for millennia, as the sea eroded the bluffs around them. On land, much of the landscape is melange, part of the defining geology in the Bay Area, the Franciscan complex formation. Melange is a crushed jumble of ancient sea floor deposits and lava erupting along cracks underwater. Massive boulders dotting the rolling landscape are its clues. Like nuts in cookies, these harder greywacke sandstone and greenstone basalts emerge from undistinguishable rubble of crushed rock and softer seabed materials to create the picturesque California coastal landscape.

The Moving Land

Both Point Reyes and Bolinas peninsula have been inching their way north from Monterey for 12 to 15 million years. Bolinas and Point Reyes sit on the Pacific Plate and Muir Beach Overlook sit on the North American Plate. On its slowly grinding path, the Pacific Plate scrapes its edge along the North American plate while it also pushes up from beneath, forming the coastal mountains.

The famous San Andreas Fault separates the two plates and lies just offshore from Muir Beach Overlook, coming onto land at Stinson Beach, about ten miles to the north. Driving along Highway 1 for forty miles north from here, you can follow this famous fault along Stinson Beach and Bolinas Lagoon, through the Olema Valley and along Tomales Bay.

Soldiers Guarding the Coast

Early in World War II, the United States was reeling form Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and moved to augment the defense of San Francisco Bay from enemy ships. Base end "fire control" stations proliferated along the coast in those fearful times. Built to house soldiers on the lookout for enemy ships, and equipped with a very powerful spotting scope, they could relay ship coordinates to a central communications and plotting center, so powerful guns in nearby batteries could take accurate aim at their targets.

There are four historic base end stations, nicknamed "gopher holes" by the soldiers. The soldiers main duty was to scan the ocean for enemy ships. Each base end station had two men on duty at all times. Most base end stations were a single room, furnished with bare necessities. Two narrow bunks and a stove made them livable, but duty in these "gopher holes" could be cold and miserable.

Wearing Parkas in Summer

On many days, this was a cold, damp, windy, foggy, isolated place to be stationed during World War II. During the summer of 1944, an officer commanding one of the stations at Muir Beach Overlook put in a supply request for cold weather parkas and fur lined boots for the men. A few days later, he received a call from a supply sergeant at an army depot. Why, the sergeant wanted to know, did the coast artillery need Arctic-type clothing...in California? He had just shipped an order of summer-weight shorts and shirts to the Army air force base at Hamilton Field. Weren't the two posts just a few miles apart? The lieutenant replied: "You'd have to be from the Bay Area to understand."

Battery Spencer

2015.09.24

While I was making my travel plans in Taiwan, I learned that the view of the Golden Gate Bridge from Battery Spencer is supposed to be spectacular. So after visiting the Vista Point, I drove to Battery Spencer which is on the opposite side of the Vista Point. After just a short walk from the entrance, you can see the panorama of the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco Bay. I took a look on the information board at the entrance and found there were a lot of batteries scattered along the coastline bluff. Some of them looked worth a visit but I didn't have too much time for them that day.

Alcatraz Island

The rock formation at the entrance

H. Dana Bowers Vista Point

2015.09.23

After a whole day of work, I ate dinner, took a shower, and then headed to the airport at 9 PM, to take the red eye flight at midnight to San Francisco.

On the plane, I watched the movie San Andreas. After the movie was over, it gave me a feeling of dread because it described a possible disaster in the city I was visiting. Then I chose another movie called Terminator: Genisys, the first scene of which showed the ruin of San Francisco after a nuclear bomb hit it......These two movies made me a little bit nervous while driving on the Golden Gate Bridge and I felt relief when I left San Francisco the next day. lol

I arrived in San Francisco at 8 PM, and drove to my friend's apartment in Sunnyvale after renting a small car that was unbelievably expensive. I was happy to see my UM friend again, someone I had not seen for two years.

2015.09.24

I woke up at 6 AM, and I drove to a restaurant nearby which my friend recommended to me. He said it would remind me of the Northside Grill on north campus in Ann Arbor. It was very delicious and inexpensive. On the way to the restaurant, the color of the sunrise in the distance was very beautiful and almost made me want to skip the breakfast. Fortunately, I didn't do that because I did not have any lunch that day and I had a late dinner. I spent most of the day driving as fast as I could to Arcata, which is about 250 miles from Muir Woods.

The first stop was Vista Point where you can see the Golden Gate Bridge from the north side. I have been to the other end of the bridge, where I walked along the coastline all day long to get many different viewing angles. After I went home, I found the view from the north end of the bridge was also very beautiful. Almost after three years, I finally got the chance to visit the bridge again.

There is a Memorial Plaza at Vista Point. It is unique with its sixteen compass points, radial edges and multiple angles. It is composed of six different types of granite quarried from around the world: Verde Olivo and Verde Maritake from Brazil; Ruby Red from India; Belfast Black from South Africa; Absolute Black from Zimbabwe; and Luna Pearl from Italy. Rough stones were fabricated in Italy to exact sizes using computer aided technology and very high water pressure (50,000 lbs.) injected with an abrasive. The plaza contains more than 1,100 individual granite pieces cut into over 300 different shapes and sizes.

 

The Story Behind The Lone Sailor Memorial

 

One of the great natural seaports of the world, discovered by Jose Ortega in 1769, San Francisco Bay has been home to both military and commercial ships from around the world.

San Francisco served as the major embarkation point for armed forces fighting in the Pacific during World War II. Over 1.5 million men and women shipped out of here during the conflict. The Bay Area was also home to major maritime installations - two naval air stations, two shipyards, major naval stations and supply centers, the Coast Guard Academy and Merchant Marine Academy. Most have been closed in a Federal base realignment program.

Until 2005 there was no site honoring the relationship between the Bay Area and US. Maritime services of the military and Merchant Marine. This Lone Sailor Memorial was built to recognize the relationship and to honor the men and women who have sailed out of the Golden Gate to do their duty for America while serving in the US. Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine.

Henry Trione, a leading citizen of Santa Rosa and an area business leader, was the driving force behind establishment of this Memorial. On August 18, 1997, he hosted a luncheon to broach the idea, and it took off from there. It took five years starting from scratch to locate this site, to obtain the necessary approvals form a myriad of proprietary interests and to complete the construction started March 2001 and it involved a number of enthusiastic participants and contributors. Over $2.5 million was raised - all private donations, large and small. The Memorial was dedicated on April 14, 2002, and title of the Memorial was deeded to the California Department of Transportation which has the responsibility for operating and maintaining the R. Dana Bowers Vista Point Site.

Cast by sculptor Stanley Bleifeld, the U.S. Navy Memorial's official sculptor, for the Vista Point site, it replicates the statue in Washington.