This morning I had two times to adhere to, first I had to move the car before 9:00, and between 9:30 and 10:00, I had to arrive at the Muir Woods. They have quite limited parking, so you need to make a reservation before going there. I managed to get away in time, but arrived a bit early (have you read that before?), that wasn’t an issue though.
Here you can watch a map of the area (PDF).
At 9:30, I entered the park, passed through the Muir Woods Visitors Center, and set off along the main trail, with wide wooden floors.
The trees aren’t so wide you can drive a truck through them, but they are huge and pretty thick anyway. The one below was apparently about a 1000 years old :O
Soon, I found a trail leading off the main path, called the Canopy View Trail. About 4,4 km and 200 meters climb. Expect to spend about two hours. That felt like a good trip, so I took off!
Since it was quite cold, I had both my sweater and my jacket on, but pretty soon the jacket came off. After another ten minutes, the sweater was also put in the backpack.
I’m pretty strong, but my fitness isn’t that good. So pretty soon my pulse raised, and my breathing got heavy. Not to the extent that it hindered me, but it was noticeable that I was climbing. The trail had quite a lot of roots, so I had to keep my eyes on the ground so I wouldn’t fall. I stopped every now and then to admire the surroundings though, beautiful!
At about 10:20, about two-thirds of the trail, I reached the highest point. Nice! Here you could choose to go the Lost Trail, or the longer Redwood/Dipsea Trail. I continued with the plan and took the shorter one.
The way down was as tough as the climb, not pulse-wise, but on the knees. It was the same number of meters in height, but on a shorter distance, so it was steeper, at least it felt that way. At 10:50, I had reached the main path again. I walked a bit further on that to reach the Hillside Trail, which would take me back to the Visitors Center again. Half an hour later, I was browsing the gift shop, trying to dry up some of the sweat before getting in my rental car again. I found a mug that was very nice, but $50 was a bit too steep for me 🙁
On the way back to San Francisco, I stopped a couple of times to enjoy the view.
One of them was Battery Spencer Overlook, to get a good view of the Golden Gate Bridge. It was very windy, to the point I was happy I had left my cap in the car. I took a few photos and then headed back, because it got cold.
Just before I crossed the bridge, I saw a sign saying, last exit before toll. Since there was no toll in the other direction, I got a bit surprised and anxious. I hadn’t booked the “toll included” package with the car. There was no way to pay the toll at the toll station (the signs said explicitly, don’t stop!). I went to fill up the gas tank and then back to the Hertz office. When I dropped off the car, I asked about the tolls. First, they gave me a piece of paper with a webpage where I could pay the tolls within 24 hours. Then, when he printed the receipt, he said that tolls were included. When I got back to the hotel and checked the receipt, it seemed they had added that package anyway. I won’t fight about it, but next time I’ll ask more specifically, because the toll was probably no way near the sum I paid for the package.
I jumped into the bathtub (marginally bigger than in Las Vegas) and watched the game between Edsbyns IF and IK Sirius BK. The game ended 1-1. Followed up with a power nap and then got dressed and took the bus down to Fisherman’s Wharf.
I walked around, looking at people, did some shopping, and found the place I intend to play an escape room at tomorrow. At 18:40, I met Tom outside Scoma’s Restaurant. We worked together at the World Scout Jamboree in 2019. It was really nice to see him again, and we had a lovely dinner while we talked about many different topics. The food was great, and the atmosphere was nice.
After dinner, I checked the Uber app, and the price was low, so I took the lazy way back to the hotel. A very nice driver.