Muir Woods

It’s possible, after a short walk in this national monument, to completely forget that downtown San Francisco is less than 15 miles away. This relatively small park, which is part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area, contains an impressive diversity of plants and animals, including an intact old-growth coast redwood forest and habitat that supports many ferns, wildflowers, small birds and mammals, and several federally listed species. Naturalist John Muir himself called the park "the best tree-lovers monument that could possibly be found in all the forests of the world."