MUIR WOODS UN DAY Contemplative Walk

I have been working on the steering committee of the event honoring Dag Hammarskjold, and the 70th signing of the Charter for the UN in SF on June, 27 with Mary Steiner and Rev Steve Harms, as principals  We were invited by Mia to join her in a historical and contemplative walk in the National Monument, Muir Woods, which I have wanted to visit since arrival in San Francisco. It did not disappoint.!  "In every walk with nature, one receives far more than one seeks." -- John Muir.

Janet Roberts, Mia (ranger guide)Mary Steiner, (behind her and to my rifhrt, her brother Franz Steiner; Reverend Steve Harms Peace Lutheran Church, and two other members of the hike and the other ranger. 

"The joy of looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift." --Albert Einstein. 

A mother doe deciding to return to her twin one month old fawns across our path 

A particular kind of fern which is one of the oldest on earth beautifully backlit 

The Cathedral Grove of Sequoias   The redwood grove has
400-800 year old trees which rise as much as 250 ft high.

Walking along this stream by the Fern Creek Bridge 

The whole group refreshed by the contemplative walk, with our ranger guide.
 Janet, photographer.


Muir Woods is a remnant of the ancient coast redwood forests that blanketed Northern California coastal valleys before the 1800s.    Mia explains to us how in established forests like Muir Woods, burl sprouting accounts for most reproduction of redwoods.  A burl is a mass of dormant buds that grows at the abse or on the roots or sides of redwoods.  When a tree is injured or tissue near a burl is affected the burl may sprout.  Sprouting gives redwoods great competitive advantage over that the reproduce by seed only.  Tightly grouped redwoods, or those fused at their base, she tells us, probably began life as burl sprouts as we saw such specimens.  Long after the parent tree falls and decomposes burl sprouts form a family circle or fairy ring of mature trees like that in Cathedral Grove.
 
Local businessman William Kent and his wife Elizabeth Thacher Kent bought land in 1905 to protect the last uncut stands of redwoods and ensure its permanent protection, donated the land to the federal government.  In 1908 President Theodore Roosevelt used the 1906 Antiquities Act to proclaim the area a national monument.  A the request of William Kent, the area was named in honor of conservationist John Muir.  Kent later served in the US House of Representatives, and in 1916 he introduced legislation creating the National Park Service.  A tree honors Gifford Pinchot, the first chief of the US Forest Service with a plaque donated by the Sierra Club and nearby another tree honors R.W. Emerson, a friend of John Muir. Mia explained to us that people think they come for the trees, but what they seem most excited about is the wildlife they experience.  She further explained how chipmunks had disappeared but now that the undergrowth has returned, they have returned.  We heard a stellars jay and Mia told us about  about the spotted owl nesting but that it is nocturnal so rarely seen.  The coho salmon and trout are endangered and diminishing.  The Muir Woods is a part of the Golden Gate International Biosphere Reserve - one of the planet's richest but most threatened reservoirs of plant and animal life.  The Pacific warbler was singing  melodious notes.  Mia also identified for us the "who-o-ing" of the Band Tail pigeon.