For those susceptible to its clean, sweetly medicinal scent, the eucalyptus tree emits one of the most seductive aromas in the world, and it follows you as you drive from San Francisco, through the Presidio, across the Golden Gate Bridge and on up Highway 1 above Sausalito toward the Muir Woods National Monument.
But the eucalyptus is an import, brought to California from Australia a mere century ago, and therefore not to be found in the Muir Woods. Here, all is redwood, pine, fern and California bays, just as it has been for millenia.Once inside the park, it is hard to imagine San Francisco, even though the city is only half an hour away and would be closer still were it not for the curved, narrow, acrophobia-inducing roads that one must negotiate to get to the 510 acres of cool, shaded land that make up the Muir Woods.
"This is the best tree-lovers monument that could be found in all the forests in the world," the American naturalist and author John Muir wrote in 1908 when he was told that a California political reformer named William Kent had donated the land as a national monument in his honor. Kent had purchased what was then called Redwood Canyon in 1905 (for $45,000) with plans for commercial development.
But when he realized that outside interests wanted to level the forest for lumber and then flood the canyon for use as a reservoir, he changed his mind and decided that the area should be preserved.
On Jan. 9, 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed Redwood Canyon a national monument; Kent insisted that it be named for John Muir, who had already done important work salvaging the dwindling American wilderness. "You have done me great honor," Muir wrote to Kent. "Saving these redwoods from the axe and saw, from money changers and water changers is in many ways the most notable service to God and man I have heard since my forest wanderings began."
Inside the gate and past the Muir Park gift shop (filled, incredibly, with redwood souvenirs - candleholders, bowls, tiny boxes and the like - all of which, however, bear the discreet notice that they do not originate from the monument), a visitor initially shares a well-beaten path with dozens of other guests. But then the paths diverge, and it is easy to find solitude. Indeed, such is the scope of the Muir Woods that all human activities are rendered Lilliputian: One suspects that it could be filled with thousands of people and still seem unpeopled.
I was reminded of the epigram that composer Jean Sibelius provided for his tone-poem "Tapiola":
"Widespread they stand, the Northland's dusky forests;
ancient, mysterious, brooding savage dreams ..."
Redwoods and firs, some of them 250 feet tall, tower above the paths, cathedral-like, admitting distinct and rarefied shards of sunlight. On a foggy day, it is said that you can't see the tops of the trees.
The Muir Woods soil is moist, rich and full of insects; it could not be much more different from the arid, green-brown hills that flank San Francisco to the south.
The woods are full of animal life - blacktail deer, raccoons, foxes, bobcats, hawks, hummingbirds and thrushes. The more esoteric residents of the forest were nowhere to be seen during my visit, and I had to content myself with a lengthy communion with the stellar's jay, a friendly, animated bird of deep blue, tame as a Central Park pigeon but infinitely more glamorous.
In all, there are six miles of trails throughout the Muir Woods; visitors are asked to stay on the paths, and no picnicking is allowed. Both camping and campfires are also forbidden, for obvious reasons; the last major fire in the Muir Woods occurred in 1845 and one may still see the scars on some of the older redwood barks. A tree 145 years old is young for a redwood, by the way; the oldest tree in the monument has an estimated age of 1,200 years.
As in any great panoramic painting (and visitors to the Muir Woods often feel as though they have been dropped into some heroic landscape), much of the genius is in the details. The towering redwoods fascinate - my neck was sore for the day after my visit - but so do intricacies closer to the ground: the gray lichens that cling to shaggy bark the matrixed ferns the tangled tree roots half-overcome by moss.
It is also possible to witness the process of regeneration. A tree has fallen - years ago, decades ago - and now new life, in the guise of a dozen new trees, sprouts from its trunk, twisting upward toward the light.
One returns to San Francisco and "civilization" with a certain reluctance. The city seems subdued these days - devastated by AIDS and haunted by earthquake jitters. "The big one," - that looming, long-feared apocalypse - is on everybody's mind, more so than ever before. Still, there can be few more idiosyncratic and sophisticated cities (is it possible to get a bad meal in San Francisco?), and a New Yorker cannot help but reflect anew on whether residence in the East is worth the beating.
Meanwhile, Muir Woods remains behind, secure.
Distributed by the Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service