My First Summer in the SierraUniversity of California Press, 1990 - 188 pages This volume in the John Muir Library Series is the most popular of Muir's works: the naturalist's account of his first visit to the High Sierra and the Yosemite. There he recognized his life's calling: to preserve wilderness areas. Muir's extraordinary memoir vividly communicates the excitement and reverence he felt at discovering the spectacular natural world of the Sierra. Based on his journal entries for 1869, the text has an immediacy and spontaneity that bring alive the voice and emotions of the young Muir and the humor of his rough-and-tumble adventures as a California shepherd. The book brims with the budding naturalist's detailed observations of the region's flora and fauna as well as his memorable encounters with local characters and the region's Indians. This joyous book is Muir's celebration of the landscape that he came to love passionately - "my forever memorable first High Sierra excursion, when I crossed the Range of Light, surely the brightest and best of all the Lord has built."My First Summer in the Sierratraces the emergence of his conservationist urge as he contrasts the Indians, "who walk softly and hurt the landscape hardly more than the birds or the squirrels," with the white settlers - blasting roads, building intrusive structures, and altering the landscape. Muir shares his growing determination to preserve this "divine, enduring, unwastable wealth" for future generations. |
Contents
Through the Foothills with a Flock of Sheep | 1 |
In Camp on the North Fork of the Merced | 21 |
A Bread Famine | 51 |
To the High Mountains | 59 |
The Yosemite | 80 |
Mount Hoffman and Lake Tenaya | 104 |
A Strange Experience | 124 |
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Abies magnifica animals bark basin bear beauty beneath birds boulders branches bread bushes calm camp cañon Carlo Cathedral Cathedral Peak ceanothus chaparral charming climb clouds color cones conifers corral Crane Flat Delaney domes Douglas squirrel fall feet high feet in diameter fire flock flowers forest gardens gazing glacier glorious glow grand grass gray ground groves growing hundred inches Indian ivesia John Muir lake landscape larvæ leaves lilies living look magnificent manzanita meadows Merced miles Mono moraine morning moun Mount Dana mountains Muir Nature's never night noon peaks plants Professor Butler purple ridges river rocks seeds seems seen sheep shepherd shining Sierra silver fir slopes snow species squirrels storm strange streams sugar pine summer summit sunshine Tenaya thousand feet trees Tuolumne Tuolumne Meadows Tuolumne River valley Vernal Fall weather wild wilderness wonderful woods Yosemite Creek