Redwoods National and State Parks, Crescent City, California and Muir Woods, National Monument, Mill Valley, California

Let’s be frank. Words and photos cannot adequately capture some of the wondrous parks in our land. Redwoods NP and Muir Woods NM fall into this category. These are several of the Crown Jewels of the NPS. To truly cover these two NPS site and the other natural wonders of the California, we also need to look at John Muir, the grand spirit of the High Sierras. First, these majestic parks, the redwoods, then Muir.

Tall trees at Redwoods NP (Photo by Hunner)

At Redwoods National and State Parks on the Pacific coast in northern California, the tallest living things in the world grow. They reach upwards of 370 feet, and their trunks are fifteen feet in diameter. Some redwoods are as tall as the Statue of Liberty and taller than a thirty story building.  Standing at a base of a redwood with hands on the grooved bark and looking up, I marveled at the size and age of such trees. Most groves hold trees 500 to 700 years old with some older than 2,000 years. These ancient beings are not only the tallest living things on the planet, but some of the oldest.

Redwoods thrive along the coastal mountains of northern California. Fog in the summer brings nourishing moisture, and the lack of winter frost ensures a year round growing season. Their bark is fire resistant and repels harmful bugs. At the Redwoods Parks, I spent hours hiking along the Brown Creek, Rhododendron, and South Fork Trails. As I first wandered and gazed up at these ancient groves, I kept stumbling on the exposed roots. One ranger told me that the root system is their only weakness. Since these tall trees have no tap root and are shallow, not much deeper than eight to ten feet, they are prone to winds which can knock them over. The roots do spread out up to 100 feet, and cover the grove’s floor. I made slow progress as I looked up at the giants and glanced down at their roots. In truth, I stumbled a lot under the red and green canopy of the forest.

A downed redwood with exposed shallow root system (Photo by Hunner)

The Redwoods Parks is a joint venture between the NPS and California State Parks. For forty miles of coastline along the Pacific, the state and national parks preserve these wondrous trees. Preservation started over 100 years ago as alarms grew about the decimation of the redwood groves by logging.

In 1918, the Save-the-Redwoods League formed and began buying up threatened groves that are now Jedediah Smith, Del Norte Coast, and Prairie Creek Redwoods State Parks. While the State Parks protected these tall trees, more old growth forests fell. A survey by the National Geographic Society in the 1960s revealed that of the “original 2 million acres of virgin redwoods, only 300,000 acres, or 15 percent, remained uncut, with 50,000 of those acres in state parks.”[1] This report galvanized many to seek further protection. The Sierra Club proposed a 90,000 acre park while those in the lumber industry countered with claiming that just the three existing state parks should become the national one. Congress compromised and established the 58,000 acre Redwood NP in 1968 to compliment the state parks.

Who worked to protect the redwoods? Of course, many people called for their preservation, perhaps none so influential as John Muir. Born in Dunbar, Scotland in 1838, he came with his family to Wisconsin in 1849. He studied botany, chemistry, and geology for several years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison until he left to attend what he called “the University of the Wilderness.” In the late 1860s, he suffered an eye injury at a factory that temporarily blinded him. Once recovered, he walked 1,000 miles to Florida. Eventually, he arrived in San Francisco by boat in 1868 and wandered around the Golden State.

John Muir (from www.pbs.com)

When he got to Sierra Nevadas, he settled in the Yosemite Valley where he built humble shacks, worked at a saw mill, and herded sheep. And he fell into a deep love with the mountains, valleys, and meadows of the Sierra Nevadas.  About the high country, Muir wrote: “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul.” Reveling in the spirituality that surrounded him in the mountains, Muir started writing to proclaim the benefits of going into the wilderness. 

To the revered writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, Muir invited him to join him: "Do not thus drift away with the mob, while the spirits of these rocks and waters hail after you, after long waiting as their kinsman and persuade you to closer communion.... I invite you to join me in a month's worship with Nature in the high temples of the great Sierra Crown beyond our holy Yosemite." His writings attracted Emerson and others to join and support the preservation of these holy places. 

Muir did not see Nature as a warehouse of natural resources, but as a storehouse of spiritual sources, and he actively sought to protect these temples of God. His main tool was his pen. He wrote about Nature for many different publications and helped get Congress to protect Yosemite in 1890. In 1892, along with a number of supporters, Muir founded the Sierra Club. He wanted to "do something for wildness and make the mountains glad." He was its president until his death in 1914, and the Sierra Club continues to be a strong voice for preservation.

His advocacy for nature, his cries for the protection of tall trees, alpine meadows, thundering waterfalls, mirror lakes, deep valleys, and high domes helped create the preservation movement that led to the establishment of the National Park Service in 1916. We will come back to him in the next week’s posting about Yosemite. Let’s return to the glorious redwoods.

Tall trees (Photo by Hunner)

Muir Woods, in the hills north of the Golden Gate Bridge, also honors the redwoods.  A postage stamp sized park at 553 acres, its attraction is up, not on the ground. Two paved paths snake up the narrow valley on each side of the small Redwood Creek. Many people were at Muir Woods the day I was there, but they mainly walked on the main trails along the creek bed. I jumped off the Redwood Creek Trail and quickly left the crowds as I hiked up the Canopy View Trail. Ambling along, breathing in the rich oxygen given off by these consumers of carbon dioxide, I breathed in the scents of trees hundreds, even thousands of years old and communed with these ancient beings. Talking about the groves at Muir Woods, a friend once said: “Nature is so generous. It is eternity.” This is a magical place.

At a table near the visitors’ center, I met two summer employees -- Danielle Shinmoto and Brandon Burkes. These college students explained the acquisition of the park. In 1905, William and Elizabeth Thacher Kent paid $45,000 for this valley to save some of the last uncut stands of redwoods near San Francisco. After the 1906 earthquake, the North Coast Water Company tried to gain access to the redwoods for the wood to help rebuild San Francisco, but the Kents thwarted this by donating 295 acres to the federal government. In 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed their property a National Monument. The Kents insisted that the monument be named to honor John Muir’s conservation efforts.

Muir and William Kent
(From Wikipedia Commons)

Elizabeth Thacher Kent
(From wikipedia Commons)

How could the president set aside public lands? The recently signed Antiquities Act gave Teddy that power, and presidents to this day invoke this act to preserve unique pieces of our land and heritage. Roosevelt was a new type of politician, a “progressive” who reshaped our government.  

Through the 19th century, laissez-faire capitalism ruled, and natural resources were used without much thought about the future. After the turn of the 20th century, a new ethos emerged that centered around the policy of what would bring "the greatest good for the greatest number of people over the greatest period of time." This long view utilitarian approach to Nature transformed the previous hands-off, no regulation attitude. Throughout the 20th century, the utilitarian policy has ruled so that we now scientifically manage the resources on our public lands.

The history of the NPS reflects the web and flow of the struggle between the policies of laissez-faire versus the management of our natural resources on public lands. William Kent, being a Progressive member of the U.S. House of Representatives, supported the protection of our natural resources and introduced and helped pass the Organic Act of 1916 which created the National Park Service.

Without John Muir, Teddy Roosevelt, Elizabeth and William Kent, and thousands of others, we might not have Muir Woods and Redwoods National Parks, we might not have Manzanar NHP and Independence Hall NHP, we might not even have the National Park Service. The deep yearning and dedication of many people to preserve our natural and historic sites have enriched our country. 

Without these people and these treasured places, we would be a lesser country.

Redwoods National Park was established by Congress and President Lyndon Johnson on Oct. 2, 1968. It now has 105,516 acres. In 1980, it was designated as a World Heritage Site. Muir Woods was proclaimed a National Monument on January 9, 1908 by President Teddy Roosevelt in the last months of his presidency. It now holds 553 acres. 

Redwoods and Rhododendrons at Redwoods NP (Photo by Hunner)

[1] Richard Rasp, Redwood: The Story Behind the Scenery(KC Publications, 1989),46-47.