How to Explore Muir Woods After Dark

“Breathe in deeply through your nose and slowly exhale through your mouth. You are a part of the life cycle of this forest.”

It’s just after 6 p.m. in Muir Woods National Monument, and below a thick canopy of redwoods, Ranger Jace Ritchey is speaking to a large group of people gathered on the boardwalk.

But instead of walking these wooden boards, as thousands of tourists do every day at this national park, these people are lying down on them — gazing up at the forest from below as Ritchey leads them through a guided meditation.

At this time of day, birds are chirping all around as dusk falls and the gurgle of a creek can be heard far off. The usually bustling park is nearly empty, apart from the lucky group lying on the ground.

This is not your typical walk through these famous trees. This is the Muir Woods night tour, a monthly event on the last Friday of each month, between January and October.

But getting tickets to this in-demand ranger program is no easy feat. They go on sale two weeks before the tour and sell out almost immediately, Ritchey said, and the May tour garnered more than 400 signups within just an hour.

The theme of this April tour, Ritchey tells the group on the boardwalk, is “community and perspective.”

“So as we walk into this old-growth ecosystem, I invite you to connect and reflect on what community means to you,” they said.

Behind the scenes on the night tour

The tour itself is a two-mile walk, hitting all the famous landmarks in the central part of the park, meandering along the Redwood Grove Trail and Hillside Trail to pass landmarks like Founders Grove and Cathedral Grove.

At the entrance to the park, Ritchey explains to the assembled night tourers that, unlike so many other places where old-growth redwood trees were logged or destroyed, this forest was protected, preserving its biodiversity.

Ritchey leads the group into the forest just as the sun is setting.

One of them, Oakland resident Oren Finard, who’s attending with his in-laws tonight, is actually visiting Muir Woods for the first time.

“I can’t think of a prettier way to see this place than at twilight and with nobody else in the park,” he said. “That is pretty special.”

In Founders Grove, Muir Woods intern Ellie Hennessy asks the group to share a place where they’ve felt a sense of awe in nature. For Kenny Coy, visiting from Novato with his wife, that’s the Gualala River in Sonoma County.

“The river will get super calm and glassy,” Coy said. “It’s really awesome.”

When the group lies down on the boardwalk for their meditation, they find that the sounds of the forest become amplified. A woodpecker can be heard, the signature “tuck tuck tuck” of its beak pounding into a nearby tree.

“The evening especially is one of those moments where the forest quiets for the visitors, but the forest comes alive for the wildlife,” Ritchey said.

Ritchey shows photos of other animals that call this park home at night, like bats, deer and even mountain lions, but promises the latter shouldn’t make an appearance tonight.

At Redwood Creek, Ritchey points out the handiwork of the Civilian Conservation Corps, which, back in the ’30s and ’40s, built stone walls along the creek to control erosion and prevent flooding. Today, they explain, the park takes a more modern approach, allowing debris to build up in the creek naturally to support coho salmon habitat.

Cori Castro, who lives in San Rafael, said she tried for months to get a Muir Woods night tour ticket. Then, this month, her friend came to the rescue with an extra.

Her serendipitous luck even continued on the tour, Castro said, when she glanced up during the meditation and realized she recognized a specific tree from an earlier encounter decades ago.

“I looked over, and I was like, ‘That tree looks really familiar,’” she said. “I remember it’s from a picture that I took of my kids.”

That tree from the photograph “looks exactly the same,” she said. “And my kids are 30 and 28 now.”

Castro said she’s been feeling weighed down by politics, the news and the general state of the world.

“But you come here, and you’re like — all that goes away,” she said. “That’s what this reminds me of: how insignificant I am, and we are. It gives me hope.”

‘Be one, benevolent’

The night hikers follow a trail that climbs up above the trees, bringing them eye-to-eye with the canopy. Darkness is closing in, and they’re watching their step carefully while using their flashlights and the light of the moon high in the sky, a bright beacon above.

The group stops for a history lesson. It starts with all the usual players — the white men who fought to protect this place from logging and destruction, and who named this park after naturalist John Muir.

But Ritchey said there’s more to the story, telling the assembled hikers about the stewardship of the Coast Miwok and the contributions of a group of women who fought for park conservation in the early 1900s. And Ritchey calls out the founders’ belief in eugenics, “who I kid you not saw in redwood trees a metaphor for the greatness of white people,” they said.

In keeping with tonight’s theme of community and perspective, Ritchey draws a lesson for the group.

“Just like the trees are connected to their ecosystem, people connected, shared their resources, and said, ‘We want to protect a place we love. We will take action to do so,’” Ritchey said.

“As darkness falls upon this place — and only feet away from you, you cannot see the faces of each other — know you are surrounded by people who care.”

It’s the end of the tour, and time to pass back through Cathedral Grove — a federally designated “quiet area.” In the 1940s, delegates from the United Nations came to this spot during the organization’s founding to remind them what peace feels like.

Ritchey asks the group to turn off their lights and “bask in moonglow.”

And to end, Ritchey’s favorite part of the tour: When the hikers make a single file line and wait for the person ahead of them to disappear into the silent darkness before they follow. Even though they’re all just a few paces behind each other, it feels like they’re out here alone in the forest.

“I hope to inspire people to be one, benevolent, like so many presences in this forest are,” Ritchey said. “But ultimately, we have that choice to make. So make a good one.”

“Happy trails and good night.”

How to take an unexpected tour of Muir Woods to know about this and other ranger tours

Tickets for the free Muir Woods night tour are released two weeks ahead of the program at 8 a.m., and you can reserve tickets for a maximum of 6 people. You won’t be able to go through the ticket reservation process until that “two weeks before” date.

Muir Woods parking reservations are not required for this tour if you arrive after 6 p.m.

The 2026 Muir Woods night tours take place on the following Fridays:

• April 24 (registration passed)
• May 29 (opens 5/15)
• June 26 (opens 6/12)
• July 31 (opens 7/17)
• Aug. 28 (opens 8/14)
• Sept. 25 (opens 9/11)
• Oct. 30 (opens 10/16)

You could also check out the more strenuous 3-mile “Owl Prowl” guided hike at dusk in Muir Woods. Reservations are also required for this tour, which takes place on:

• May 9 (reservations open April 25)
• Aug 15 (reservations open Aug. 1)
• Nov 7 (reservations open Oct. 24)

While night tour tickets are tough to snag, if you miss out, there are other free Muir Woods tours open to the public that don’t require signups, including:

• “Welcome to The Woods” 15-minute talks: Offered daily at 10:15 a.m. and 1:15 p.m. (and at 3:15 p.m. starting in May)
• One-hour ranger tours: Offered Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday at 11 a.m.
• Occasional Muir Woods Junior Ranger Days with activities for all ages. Entry fee is waived for this event, but parking reservations are still required.