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Chapter Two For much of the next decade John Muir made the incomparable Yosemite Valley the center of his experience, becoming well-known among visitors for his tales of travel in what he called "the range of light." Soon his words reached the larger audience of the New York Tribune and other influential publications, and he was writing that the Sierra should be explored by everyone with "the right manners of the wilderness," and permanently protected as a recreational resource accessible to all. Ralph Waldo Emerson visited Yosemite in 1871. Muir introduced himself and attempted to spirit the aging philosopher away from his literary entourage, to camp for a night beneath the sequoias. But, as Muir observed, "the house habit was not to be overcome." Nevertheless, the two men did converse while on a day walk, and the next year Emerson wrote in hope that Muir's "probation and sequestration in the solitudes and snows had reached their term," suggesting that it was time to enter society. Although Muir was moved by this plea, he did not leave Yosemite. Instead he responded to what historian Kevin Starr has called "a deep California hope: that a regional heritage could be defined and preserved." Muir's commerce in the 1870s was with the mountains, and his voice gave shape to what Starr calls a "distinctly Californian relationship to the outdoors." For Muir, this relationship was often enjoyed in solitude. He once wrote that "no mountaineer is truly free who is trammelled with friend or servant, who has the care of more than two legs." But as he did with Emerson, Muir also sought communal outings. In 1870 he joined a party of students from the University of California that included Professor Joseph LeConte, Sr. LeConte had been invited on this student excursion at the end of spring term because he was, as Sierra Club historian Francis Farquhar wrote, "the very ideal of the college professor, and his students felt for him an admiration only surpassed by their admiration for his scholarship." Up to Top HOME | Email Signup | About Us | Contact Us | Terms of Use |
