Roys Redwoods Preserve — Attraction in Fairfax

RR is an enjoyable, scenic park to visit and hike! A true treasure for Marin County. Hiked the RR Loop trail (counter clockwise) and looked forward to getting away from the busy road. Once away from the road, the park had stunning trails with great scenery and so many cool trees and foliage. Great for photos. Took a side trip to the David Hansen Trail. Well worth the quick loop and would love to see what the park’s camera on the trail picks up for animal activity! The newly built trails (early Dec 2024) with boardwalks to view the redwoods and forests are a gem (however, when did the big tree fall on the newly built boardwalk! You may have to do a little scrambling or detour until it gets fixed) Can’t wait to explore the rest of this preserve.

Went back a couple of days later and they are fixing the boardwalk due to the fallen tree, so may need to detour slightly until fixed. Took the forest trail, mossy rock and fairy ring trail. Fairly easy and enjoyable. Also, caught this awesome sunset just up the road headed towards Nicasio.

Parking is on the road, near intersection of West Nicasio Road; however, there is a parking lot along Sir Francis Drake (old golf course?). You just need to walk a very short distance.

📢 Came back in April 2025, and the boardwalk has been fixed and really cool additions on the boardwalk trail! Very artsy...

Muir Woods requires reservations now, and they were full, so we found Roys Redwoods and went there instead. Can't say it really compares. There are only a few dozen redwoods, if that, and most of the loop trail you won't see any, but it's still pretty, and peaceful. I suggest doing the loop trail the way we did: counterclockwise. That way the first third is along the road, and not terribly pretty, but at least you get past that at the beginning and the rest of your hike is better, rather than having a disappointing end to your walk. We didn't see much wildlife, but we did see a little brown critter popping its head up. Later determined, by doing a comparison of all the holes we saw along the trail, that it was most likely a vole. The other benefit this place has over Muir Woods is that it's tremendously less crowded, which is a big bonus. One star off for the third of the trail that's along the road, but overall a very pleasant experience, and recommended if you want to see redwoods...

Such an amazing little spot to explore! Some fun little features right off the road: a climb-through tree, a little hut, a bridge! And of course the redwoods are so huge and awe-inspiring!

I was worried this little free spot might be a disappointment compared to other "real" redwood forests, but it couldn't have been more perfect!

Even on a weekday we did run into a few other groups, but everyone kept distance and put masks on when passing, so it was a great public place to be during Covid times! There was a porta-potty and hand washing station which was a pleasant surprise.

The one drawback is that the main trail had a lot of horse poop, and pretty quickly led out of the nice shady redwood part into more of a standard California brush... So we just stayed in the redwoods themselves and it was much nicer! (But we were careful to avoid leaves because we weren't sure what might be poison ivy/oak as others had...