Afoot and Afield: San Francisco Bay Area. David Weintraub
Redwood, Sun, and Dipsea trails, climbs high above Redwood Creek, visiting Mt. Tamalpais State Park and also the grounds of the Bavarian-style Tourist Club before plunging back into the redwoods. Congressman William Kent and his wife, Elizabeth, purchased the large grove of redwoods bordering Redwood Creek in 1905, and then granted it to the federal government with the understanding that it be named after John Muir.
Along the way you will walk beside giant redwoods, enjoy views of the Pacific Ocean — or the fog bank that shrouds it — and test your mettle on a stretch of a famous footrace route from Mill Valley to Stinson Beach.
DIRECTIONS From Highway 101 northbound in Mill Valley, take the Highway 1/Mill Valley/Stinson Beach exit. After exiting, stay in the right lane as you go under Highway 101. You are now on Shoreline Highway (Highway 1). About 1 mile from Highway 101, get in the left lane, and, at a stoplight, follow Shoreline Highway as it turns left.
Continue another 2.7 miles to Panoramic Highway and turn right. After 0.8 mile, turn left onto Muir Woods Road. After 1.6 miles, turn right into the main parking area for Muir Woods. If this area is full, there is another about 100 yards southeast on Muir Woods Road.
From Highway 101 southbound in Mill Valley, take the Highway 1 North/Stinson Beach exit. After exiting, bear right, go 0.1 mile to a stop sign, and turn left. You are now on Shoreline Highway (Highway 1). Go 0.5 mile to a stoplight, turn left, and follow the directions in the second paragraph, above.
FACILITIES/TRAILHEAD Just beyond the entrance station are a visitor center with books, maps, and helpful staff, as well as a cafe, a gift shop, restrooms, phone, and water. The trailhead is on the northwest end of the main parking area, just left of the entrance station and visitor center.
After paying a small entrance fee, head northwest on a level, paved path, passing an information board with history of the park and of the redwood-conservation movement. This path is commonly called the Main Trail, but it is also the continuation of the Bootjack Trail from Mt. Tamalpais State Park.
About 100 feet from the trailhead, you pass a path, right, to the gift shop and the cafe, which are open 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. Redwood Creek, which gathers water from several tributaries cascading down the south side of Mt. Tamalpais, is on your left.
Approaching Bridge 1, you get your first look at the giant coast redwoods that fill the valley, making this such a special place. Beyond Bridge 1, you stay on the east side of Redwood Creek. Rest benches here and there invite you to sit and contemplate the sights and sounds of this ancient forest, which, on weekends, may be full of visitors.
A junction with the Ocean View Trail, right, serves as a meeting place for ranger-led walks; times for these are posted near the entrance station. Continuing straight, you enter a realm dominated by giants. Dense stands of redwoods create a shady environment suited to only certain other types of plants, and the thick carpet of needles and twigs deposited each winter, called duff, makes it hard for seeds to sprout.
When you reach Bridge 2, where a vending machine has maps for sale, look across the creek: there stands the monument’s tallest tree — 253 feet — and, at 13 feet in diameter, its most stout. Stay on the east side of the creek. Beyond the bridge, the canyon holding Redwood Creek narrows, with steep hillsides rising both left and right.
Passing Bridge 3, left, you enter Cathedral Grove, where the path divides around this fantastic stand of trees. You come to the Fern Creek Trail, where you turn right, leave the paved path, and get on a dirt trail. With Fern Creek in a narrow canyon on your left, you enter Mt. Tamalpais State Park. A wooden bridge takes you across Fern Creek, and then the trail bends right, passing a set of steps leading down to the creek. The next bridge takes you back across Fern Creek, and a third, parallel to the creek, crosses a gully which holds a seasonal stream.
Soon the trail makes a sharp right-hand switchback and begins to climb. Where the Fern Creek Trail continues straight across a plank bridge nailed to a fallen redwood, at about 1 mile, you go straight on the Lost Trail. After a set of wooden steps, the trail bends left, still rising on a moderate grade. A dramatic change in vegetation marks a transition out of the redwood forest and into the realm of Douglas-fir, canyon oak, and fragrant California bay.
After following a winding course, the trail meets the Ocean View Trail at a T-junction. Turn left and continue climbing on a long, steady grade that changes from gentle to moderate. From the base of a large boulder, a rough path leads uphill and right, but your route curves left, then straightens. After a rising traverse across a steep, open hillside that drops left, you come to a four-way junction.
Tourist Club, with Bavarian-style architecture, is on the Redwood Trail, east of Muir Woods.
Turn right onto the Panoramic Trail, which heads southeast just beneath Panoramic Highway. Coming around a bend, you pass a rough path, right, and a trail merging sharply from the left — both unsigned. Ahead, at a signed fork, you veer right on the Redwood Trail and descend. After passing a wet area and negotiating a steep, rocky downhill pitch, you are back among the redwoods, which are smaller, though, than the giants beside Redwood Creek.
A sign marks the boundary of Mt. Tamalpais State Park, and you are now on land owned by the Tourist Club.
Tourist Club
The Tourist Club is part of an international conservation organization, founded in 1895 in Vienna, which has approximately 600,000 members in the U.S. and Europe. Immigrants from Germany and Austria founded the club’s Bay Area branch in the early 1900s and bought several acres of land next to Muir Woods. The club’s collection of colorful Bavarian-style buildings, set amid a Pacific-coastal forest, with a bandstand, a dance floor, and a few palm trees thrown in for good measure, is remarkable. The club is open on weekends year-round, and during the week if the caretaker is available. Hikers are welcome.
The Redwood Trail skirts the upper edge of the club’s grounds and joins a dirt access road just past a small shed. Bearing left, you meet the Sun Trail after several hundred feet. Here you turn right and wander through open terrain with great views of the often fog-shrouded ridges and ravines sloping down toward the Pacific Ocean.
The Sun Trail ends at a junction with the Dipsea Trail, which goes straight and also sharply right. Stretching from Mill Valley to Stinson Beach, the Dipsea Trail is the route of a rugged footrace, famous for its pulse-pounding uphills and knee-jarring descents, which has been held nearly every year since 1905. For more information on the race, see the website www.dipsea.org.
Here you turn right and descend over rocky ground, finally reaching Muir Woods Road via several sets of wooden steps. A trail post at about 3 miles directs you across the road to the continuation of the Dipsea Trail. Follow the trail downhill, crossing Camino del Canyon, a dirt road, and then finally meeting Muir Woods Road, which you carefully cross. From here, at the entrance to the overflow parking area, turn right and follow a dirt trail for about 100 yards to the main parking area.
TRIP 11 Mt. Tamalpais: High Marsh Loop
| Distance | 5.8 miles, Loop | |
| Hiking Time | 4 to 5 hours | |
| Elevation Gain/Loss | ±1400 feet | |
| Difficulty | Difficult | |
| Trail Use | Leashed dogs | |
| Best Times | All year | |
| Agency | Parking, CSP; trails, MMWD | |