Muir Woods National Monument is one of the only remaining examples of an old-growth Coastal Redwood forest in the San Francisco Bay area. Located just across the Golden Gate Bridge, This epic stretch of nature is less than 30 minutes on our Muir Woods tours from San Francisco. Incredible Adventures offers two Muir Woods trips so you can enjoy all of the park’s natural beauty.
Our Muir Woods with Napa & Sonoma Wine Country Tour is a very popular day tour from San Francisco. You’ll spend the morning walking among the towering redwood trees, followed by an afternoon tasting fine California wines in the world-famous Sonoma Wine Country.
This full-day tour is the perfect balance of nature and drinkable culture! If you would like to extend your adventure, our other Muir Woods excursions include a Muir Woods with Napa & Sonoma Wine Country Tour with an all-inclusive overnight stay in a cozy hotel in the wine country’s heart.
If you are short on time, we also offer a half-day Muir Woods and Sausalito Tour, which focuses on the natural beauty of Muir Woods on a guided tour, then transports you out to the quaint seaside town of Sausalito. You may take the tour as a full loop, or step off in Sausalito and take the ferry back across the bay!
Incredible Adventures can also custom design Private Muir Woods Tours in one of our Biodiesel Mini-coaches to accommodate your family, group of friends or organization to show you the best of our Muir Woods bus tours tailored to your needs.
Muir Woods National Monument is part of the Golden Gate Recreation Area and is a unit of the National Park Service which protects 554 acres of Coastal Redwood forest. The coastal redwood is the tallest tree species in the world, reaching up to 379 feet! These trees only thrive in Northern California and southern Oregon due to the thick fog that blankets the west coast in the summer months.
Muir Woods contains one of the few remaining old-growth redwoods stands in the San Francisco Bay Area, these trees are between 600-800 years old, but can live up to 2,200 years! There were an estimated 2 million acres of old-growth forest, but by the early 1900s, most of these forests had been cut down by the logging industry. Muir Woods stands today (once known as Redwood Canyon) as it was very hard to reach for loggers, so it remained untouched.
In 1905, Senator William Kent bought 611 acres of this land to protect these redwoods. When the land was threatened again, this time by a water company planning to dam Redwood Creek and flood the area, the Kents donated it to the federal government, and on January 9th, 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt declared it a National Monument, protecting the land permanently.
President Roosevelt wanted to name the Monument after Kent, but Kent insisted that it be named after John Muir, his good friend in the conservation movement who had helped establish the National Park System. And so, Muir Woods National Monument was born.
When the Golden Gate Bridge was completed in 1937, the number of visitors to Muir Woods tripled that year. Now, it is one of the major tourist attractions of the San Francisco Bay Area with over one million visitors per year. It is located about 12 miles north of San Francisco in Marin County, down a fairly winding road skirting the edge of Mount Tamalpais.
While the redwood trees draw people to the Monument, there is more to the story of an old-growth forest. It is home to numerous species of flora and fauna, unique to this ecosystem, and is part of what makes Northern California such a unique place to visit.
The San Francisco Bay Area is dry in the summer months, with little chance of rain from June through August. However unlikely it seems, summer is also a high season for fog, which adds an otherworldly vibe beneath the towering redwood trees of Muir Woods.
If you’re visiting between May and August, expect to see fog each morning and afternoon. We recommend bringing layers to counteract the chill!
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