More than a place -- a symbol. A special area which reminds me of friends and the innate beauty and value in nature....
"The Incomparable Valley" Probably the world's best known example of a glacier carved canyon. Its leaping waterfalls, towering cliffs, rounded domes, and massive monoliths make it a natural marvel. These attributes have inspired poets, painters, photographers, and millions of visitors for more than 100 years.
-- farmer, inventor, industrialist, sheep herder, naturalist,
explorer, writer and world-renowned conservationist -- born April 21, 1838 in Scotland. In 1868, he walked across central California and into Yosemite Valley for the first time. Later he would write:
Then it seemed to me the Sierra should be called not the Nevada, or "Snowy Range," but the Range of Light . . . the most divinely beautiful of all the mountain chains I have ever seen.
In his book Yosemite, Muir stated, "Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike."
Keep close to nature's heart . . . and break clear away once in a while, climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean. . . . Go to the mountains and get their glad tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.
In 1890, due in large part to the efforts of Muir and Robert Underwood Johnson, an act of Congress created Yosemite National Park, the crown jewel of the United States National Park System.
If you define a great man as one who helps change the direction of his country toward more socially desirable goals, then John Muir was a very great man. When Muir began his conservation career in the late 1880's, America seemed committed to a devastating attack on the environment. When Muir died in 1914, the country was committed in spirit, if not always in fact, to the wiser use of its natural resources.