SURVEYOR'S NOTEBOOK

Explorations Without Reservations

 

While airline travel is nowhere near as efficient as it used to be, I still often manage to travel to a Westcoast assignment pretty much in one day. This works particularly well for jobs in San Francisco or Oakland.

I grab the earliest flight from Newark and by mid morning I am in the rental car on my way to the job.

I then do the job and, if there is time, I drive across the Golden Gate bridge, take a stroll through Muir Woods and have dinner at the Pelican Inn at Muir Beach. I then drop the car off at San Francisco airport step on the Red Eye, go to sleep and arrive slightly groggy in New Jersey early in the morning.

I often take an additional nap that morning but generally show up for work in the office the same day.

There is something a little magical about doing this. While it is work, the occasional chance to visit Muir Woods and the Pelican Inn is a little touch of style and beauty in a surveyor’s life that today is nowhere near as glamorous as it used to be.

On my last trip of this type I had just picked up my rental car and got a message that the ship was delayed. It had time to kill until 2 pm. That meant that, instead of dinner, I would have lunch at the Pelican Inn.

I crossed the Golden Gate Bridge to head for a stroll through Muir Woods, but at the highway exit to Muir woods there was a sign that said: “No entrance to Muir Woods without a reservation”.

I decided to drive over anyway since the drive is wonderful on a weekday. I figured maybe that reservation thing was not strictly enforced during winter weekdays, or maybe I could figure out some other way to get in. After all, about 20 years ago I pulled in and while the visitor center was closed for a training day, they still let me go for a walk. I actually hooked up with the training class and learned more about redwoods than I could have ever imagined.

No such luck this time. Rangers and volunteers were directing traffic to rapidly filling lots and there was no internet signal deep in the hills to even figure out a way to make a reservation. I just kept driving and figured I would have an early lunch at the Pelican Inn. But when I got there, I discovered the restaurant would not open till noon.

The Pelican Inn is at Muir Beach. I had never been at the beach, so I drove the short road between the Inn and the Beach and parked at a lovely beach park. It was very quiet, and I had a lovely walk.

 

Time was too short to have lunch after the walk, so I drove through to Oakland only to discover the vessel was delayed even further. I told the local port engineer my tale of woe, and he was very familiar with the issues I encountered.

We commiserated on the press of the public on parks like Muir Woods, as if somehow my rights as an old Muir Woods hand had been violated. That is just old man moaning. Everybody deserves to enjoy our parks and if a park becomes too popular, it has to be protected by restricting access. I should be grateful I got to see it in the old days.

Change is inevitable and we should just adjust and find new joys.

In that regard the local port engineer told me there was another redwood park (Roy’s Redwoods) very close to Muir woods that is just as nice and much quieter. That will be my next place of beauty to stake a claim at while I can. It is a change from my routine, but I am actually looking forward to exploring Roy’s Redwoods.

Ironically change was part of my motivation for visiting Muir Woods. During that training day walk some 20 years ago, I asked the ranger instructor whether the total redwood volume at Muir woods was decreasing or increasing. He was puzzled by the question and admitted that, as far as he as aware, nobody had ever done a study in that regard. Old trees would occasionally fall, but all other trees, down to saplings, continued growing so it could be less, or more, or about the same. On subsequent visits I have had the chance to occasionally ask another ranger if they had done the study and, so far, they had not.

With global warming and particularly West Coast changes in the weather, it would certainly be worthwhile to take a stab at it. Technologies such a drone laser scanning may actually make it easier, but it is a shame that no data was collected in the last 20 years.

Maybe on my next trip I should make a reservation at Muir Woods to bring the subject up once again….

Nope, not my style.

Making airline and car rental reservation is already sufficiently annoying. True exploration knows no reservations. Embrace chance and change; you can’t stop change anyway.