30 Species Challenge Hike

Name: 30 Species Challenge Hike
Start: 2025-09-13T09:00:00-07:00
Location: Mountain Home parking

Schedule

Sat, 13 Sep, 2025 at 09:00 am

UTC-07:00

Location

Mountain Home parking | Mill Valley, CA

To celebrate California Biodiversity Day, we're exploring a small part of the amazing biodiversity that Muir Woods and Mount Tamalpais have to offer. This 5-mile hike will take in redwood forest, riparian corridor, mixed woodlands, grasslands, and chaparral, with all the variety of life they contain. As part of the Biodiversity Day celebration, we encourage hike participants to take photos of plants, animals, lichen, and fungi along the way to later upload to the iNaturalist "Find 30 Species for CA Biodiversity Day 2025" project and/or to the Mount Tamalpais State Park BioBlitz. No registration required.
This hike will meet and start at the Mountain Home parking lot in Mount Tamalpais State Park (no reservation or parking fees required, but early arrival recommended). The parking lot is across from 810 Panoramic Highway and there is additional parking nearby if this lot is full. The hike will follow Panoramic, Canopy View, Redwood Creek, Dipsea, Sun, Redwood, and Panoramic Trails for an about 5-mile loop down to Muir Woods and back up (about 750 feet of total climb). Trails are steep at times and will travel through varied microclimates, so suitable footwear, sun protection, and layered clothing are recommended. Water is available at the trailhead and partway through the hike, but participants should carry drinking water for the last, warmest, and uphill miles of the hike. Poison oak, ticks, and wasps may be present, so long sleeves and pants in light colors are strongly encouraged and strong fragrances are strongly discouraged.
Participants that wish to join in the iNaturalist projects should download and set up the app before the hike and also join the projects linked in the comments of the initial event post (found in "Discussion". Those unable to join the hike may still participate in these projects with observations made between September 6th and 14th!