Tagged With: Mount Whitney

“Wherever we go in the mountains, or indeed in any of God’s wild fields, we find more than we seek”

-John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (1911)

John Muir, the prominent author/naturalist/preservationist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, is arguably the most influential character in American natural history since Lewis and Clark. The time he spent wandering among the high peaks and lush valleys of the Sierra-Nevada mountain range, captured in his journals and correspondence with friends and family, has made a lasting impact on America’s moral compass. While the inspiration for his wilderness excursions could be linked to the concept of “manifest destiny”, which was so prevalent in the US around the time of his birth, his perception of what the west had to offer and his insatiable desire to preserve and protect those sacred lands could not have been more revolutionary- especially when considering the common American’s feelings about nature at the time.… Read more