I visited Muir Woods yesterday (in the company of a couple of beautiful women) via the main entrance and found it quite crowded — the only parking was a good ways down the road from the auxiliary lot. That’s one of the reasons we normally enter from the Pantoll or Bootjack trails. But the main redwood grove by the entrance really is quite spectacular, and I took a few pictures..

I’ve been taking pictures in Muir Woods for decades, but I feel it’s a difficult subject: it’s both very low (and quite green) light and also — perversely enough from the photographer’s standpoint — high contrast. Probably the best as a general rule would be a low ASA setting, a small aperture, and a very long exposure using a tripod. I didn’t have that luxury however, as I was just shooting with my trusty Canon A630. Still, these low-res samples might capture something of the feel of the day. (Expand to full screen or click through to the Flickr page for better views.)

when you could be enjoying outdoor activities? According to Forbes magazine, if you live in SF you ought to be outside right now.

You see, what Forbes did was, well, let them tell it:

Using research from the nonprofit organization Trust for Public Land, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, we gathered data on parks spending per resident, park land as a percentage of city land, recreation facilities, air quality, precipitation, sunshine and temperature extremes for 40 major cities.

No minor cities for Forbes! So what did this research tell them? Just guess!

Both Seattle and Jacksonville entered into the top 15, and even cities known for inclement weather, like Minneapolis and Boston, ranked high. Still, it was San Francisco, home to both Frisbee-tossing hippies and endurance-athlete venture capitalists, which ranked first.

So there you are. Now get out there and lets see some endurance-athlete Frisbee tossing.

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This view of Muir Woods in Marin County is from soupboy‘s photostream.

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The oversight agency for the Presidio proposes to construct not just the massive Fisher Art Museum but a 125-room hotel and new movie theaters as well, right in the middle of the park. Traffic would be directed to a hundred-space underground parking garage beneath the museum.

According to the Chronicle, “The report acknowledges that the preferred scenario would create some parking and traffic problems and would significantly change the area, which is currently a historic landmark district.”

This whole business has been an inside job, of the kind the city specializes in, like the fake merger a decade or so ago between the Chronicle and the Examiner. That was supposed to give us an expanded morning paper and keep competition alive with an afternoon one (it actually gave a few months of an extra page of comics, followed by years of staff layoffs from the consistently diminishing Chronicle and the shredding of the Examiner leading to its transformation into a giveaway).

Fisher had this deal lined up from the beginning, and there was no way his buddies on the trust were going to cross him. That’s just the way things go in the city by the bay.

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The park features a wooden stairway providing convenient access to a sheltered, rocky inlet.

Near the park is an open area that is marked as an ecological study zone. This is fenced and closed to the public.

I don’t know what kind of ecological study the University of California is doing here, but the ecology of the nature reserve seems imperfectly balanced — there were at least a couple dozen deer lounging in the meadow.

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It looks like this fellow might have been captured and taken home by someone. But what do you do with your tarantula after you get him home?

You can read about the restoration in a March 2005 San Francisco Chronicle article by Kathleen Sullivan. Here is an excerpt:

Mark de Jong, a 43-year-old Dutch contractor whose speciality in Holland was historic restoration, lives only a couple blocks away from the windmill with his American wife and three children.
“The first time I saw the windmill, I thought: Wow, that needs work,” recalled de Jong, who emigrated in 1994.
De Jong, who comes from the land of 1,000 windmills, was impressed by the size of the building.
“In Holland, windmills are about half that size,” de Jong said….

For another picture of the Bruges windmill, see my blog at rightreading.com.

In the late 19th century there was an enormous pier near this one called the Long Wharf (it opened in 1871). It reached nearly to Goat Island (Yerba Buena Island). Trains ran out the pier to connect up with sailing ships, a process that was fazed out around WWI.

In September, 2004, the park was in effect expanded with the addition of 38 adjacent acres called Middle Harbor Shoreline Park. I haven’t seen this new addition but according to Waterfront Action it features “spectacular views of the bay and shoreline, shorebirds, nearby maritime operations, San Francisco and Oakland skylines, and marine traffic at the estuary mouth;a dramatic observation tower; picnic and barbeque facilities; parking, restrooms, and water fountains; historical exhibits; an amphitheater; free viewing scopes; fishing pier and platforms; the only beach in Oakland; and nearly three miles of pedestrian and bike paths, some of which are part of the Bay Trail.”