A walk through the Muir Woods

12 January 2002

I walked up the Ben Johnson Trail (gaining a lot of respect for Mr. Johnson) taking pictures with a Nikon Coolpix 950.

I carried a Macintosh PowerBook in my backpack. When my camera's flash cards were full, I'd take a break at the side of the trail and dump the photos into the PowerBook.

The main thing I learned was that I didn't (and still don't) know how to photograph these trees.

The woods at the bottom of the trail are dark and damp, even at midday. Toward the top of the trail, the big trees thin out, giving way to underbrush.

By midafternoon at the top of the trail, the campground at the Pan Toll Ranger Station was a very welcome sight. I picked a camp site, stashed my sleeping bag, and spent the rest of the day's light hiking the Pacific side of Mount Tamalpais.

When I got back to camp, I built a fire, washed up, and zipped up inside my sleeping bag to edit pictures on the PowerBook while the coast fog rolled in and the wind rushed through the redwoods like an express train.

A Macintosh PowerBook makes a tolerable pillow.