The redwoods here are coastal, Sequoia Sempervirens, and are not the shorter, but more massive giant sequoias up in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Both types of redwoods, and a relative, the dawn redwood found in China, once lived all around the northern hemisphere, but now their numbers are drastically reduced. The coastal redwoods are the tallest living beings on earth, each one living for centuries. Dinosaurs walked through these coastal redwood groves.

This old growth forest was donated in 1908, made a national monument by Teddy Roosevelt, named for his friend the naturalist John Muir, and was the site of a UN founding meeting held in 1945 in memory of FDR. Despite the many visitors (parking or shuttle reservations required), it is still possible to find a quiet moment among these silent sentinels and connect to the ancient world.