Why Muir Woods still exists when nearly every other Bay Area redwood grove was logged — the canyon was too steep and remote to haul timber out of.
Stand here and look around at all this old growth, and then let me tell you the strange thing about it: this forest is a survivor by pure luck of geography.
When the Gold Rush hit in eighteen forty-nine and San Francisco exploded from a village into a city almost overnight, it was built out of redwood. The hills all around this bay were covered in groves just like this one, and the saws went to work. The town right down the hill from here is even named Mill Valley, for the sawmill that cut the redwoods on that side of the mountain. Within a few decades, nearly every accessible old-growth redwood grove near the bay was gone — cut down and turned into houses and fences and railroad ties.
But not this canyon. Redwood Canyon, as it was called then, was a steep, awkward, boxed-in ravine with no easy way to drag a giant log out of it. It simply wasn't worth the trouble to the loggers, so they passed it by — and that neglect is the only reason you're standing under thousand-year-old trees today instead of hundred-year-old second growth. This grove survived because it was too much bother to destroy. It came that close.
Which is exactly what makes what happened next so remarkable — because being spared by the loggers didn't mean this canyon was safe. It very nearly went under water instead. Boone's got that story, and it's a good one. Keep walking; he'll catch up with you up the trail.
Photo: Adithyavr · CC BY-SA 4.0
