Dan's Outside

I go, I see, I do, I walk, I think, I like…

Gambolin' Man Visits Muir Woods National Monument

From the Gambolin’ Man comes a (long!) post about this San Francisco Bay Area national monument (excerpt here – click the link above to see the whole thing):

MUIR WOODS NATIONAL MONUMENT: Humbled and Awed in the Sublime Presence of Coastal Californiaís Magnificent Old-Growth Redwoods

Barely visible among thick foliage, a big ol’ pileated woodpecker is flying back and forth from tree to tree working frantically to scare up some insects for a hard-earned meal. The distinctive hammering sound of her long bill, poking and drilling away on the upper reaches of a fir tree trunk, can be heard from afar. A sharp-eyed little boy on the trail points up, exclaiming, “Mommy! Look! A wood-dicker!” – Gambolin’ Man [Gambolin’ Man]

Muir Woods is another of those local Bay Area spots I seem to rarely get around to visiting. (Point Reyes is another.) I visited when I was much younger and a few years back a group of us went there so that we could hike up the hill to a pub serving European beers on an outdoor deck.

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December 12, 2006 Posted by | Places | Comments Off on Gambolin' Man Visits Muir Woods National Monument

Five Best Rocks

Tom Stienstra writes about 5 rocky Bay Area places worth visiting in SFGate, including a couple I didn’t know about:

Sitting on the top of the bay / 5 best rocks Whether you hike or climb, several Bay Area formations offer stellar views and even a few surprises. From the top of Goat Rock, you can sit in a wind-sculpted, cup-like sandstone chair for a picnic and then take in stellar long-distance views across the Santa Cruz Mountains to Monterey Bay. At Vasco Caves, you go to an area that has looks stopped in… By Tom Stienstra. [SFGate: Tom Stienstra]

The summit of Mission Peak is still one of my favorite rocky places around these parts.
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November 30, 2006 Posted by | Places | Comments Off on Five Best Rocks

Eureka! New tallest living thing discovered

THE CHAMPION: At 378.1 feet, Hyperion in Redwood National Park on North Coast towers 8 feet above Stratosphere Giant (SFGate):

So far, the group has found about 135 redwoods that reach higher than 350 feet, said team member Chris Atkins, the man credited with finding the Stratosphere Giant in August 2000 in nearby Humboldt Redwoods State Park.

The tallest of the three new finds, a redwood named Hyperion, measures 378.1 feet. Next in line, Helios, stands at 376.3 feet; Icarus, the third, reaches 371.2 feet.

Redwood experts say the discovery is a bit surprising considering that so much of the state’s redwood forests have been logged. Although officials decline to pinpoint the exact locations of the tall trees, the stand found by Atkins and fellow amateur naturalist Michael Taylor were protected less than 30 years ago by an expansion of the national park’s boundary.

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September 7, 2006 Posted by | Places | Comments Off on Eureka! New tallest living thing discovered

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