After three years of higher education Muir did various odd jobs, living for a while in Canada to escape the Civil War in the States, but it wasn’t until an accident that nearly blinded him in 1867 that he determined to wander widely. His first long trek was 1000 miles from Indianapolis to the Gulf of Mexico. He next sailed to Cuba with the intention of travelling down to South America, but instead changed his plans to head north for San Francisco where he landed in March 1868.
It was a decision that was to change the whole direction of his life. At the age of 30 he entered Yosemite for the first time and was awe-struck by what he saw. ‘I only took a walk in the Yosemite,’ he later said, ‘but stayed for six years’. California, and particularly Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada, would become his home, both physically and spiritually. To Muir the Sierra Nevada was ‘the Range of Light…the most divinely beautiful of all the mountain chains I have ever seen.’
Octogenarian Al Ansorge (seated far left) in Vermilion Valley Resort dining room during his tenth trek along the JMT
John Muir had considerable mountaineering talents, being attributed with the first ascent of Mount Ritter and with one of the early winter ascents of Half-Dome. But it is for becoming the first conservationist that he is really remembered. Muir was one of the first people to study the science of ecology and to witness at first hand, from his pine cabin home in Yosemite, the damaging effects of the hand of man. He developed a theory of glaciation to explain the formation of Yosemite Valley, and in 1874 started his career as a successful and influential writer. At the age of 42 in 1880 Muir married Louise Strentzel and moved to Martinez, California (now a John Muir National Historic Site), where he ran a fruit farm and brought up his family of two daughters, Helen and Wanda. JMT walkers will pass two mountain lakes that were named after these daughters, either side of the Muir Pass (Day 13). He still managed to travel widely, visiting Alaska, South America, Africa, Australia and elsewhere. He returned to Scotland on only one occasion, to the Highlands, Dunbar, Edinburgh and Dumfries, in 1893.
One of the numerous mountain tarns below Silver Pass (Day 9)
Through his writings and eccentric lifestyle Muir became widely known throughout the United States. He was an influential figure who received the rich and famous to his simple Californian home, including the poet and essayist Ralph Emerson, the author and naturalist H.D. Thoreau and the eminent geologist Joseph Le Conte (see Le Conte Canyon, Day 14 of the JMT). Muir was a confidant of congressmen, presidents and other influential people, and in this way was able to persuade the most powerful men in the country of the urgent need to protect the wilderness areas of western America from commercial exploitation. He pushed for the establishment of Yosemite as the first national park in 1890. In 1903 Muir encouraged President Roosevelt to spend several nights camping out in Yosemite with him, during which time they agreed on a programme of conservation for the area.
Muir was also instrumental in the fight to set up Sequoia, Grand Canyon and other national parks for reasons of conservation and access, and is today dubbed the founding father of America’s national park system. The debate over national parks was really a debate about exploitation versus conservation. In a land where capitalism and the work ethic reign supreme it is perhaps surprising that Muir’s views won the day and that the national parks in America were established to protect and conserve the great wildernesses so early on in the country’s history.
John Muir was undoubtedly America’s most famous and influential naturalist and conservationist, but he was also a popular writer whose somewhat romantic style and unbounded love of nature often won over the hearts even of those with little interest in nature and the environment. His eight wilderness books, a lifetime’s work, are classics of the genre: The Story of my Boyhood and Youth, A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf, My First Summer in the Sierra, The Mountains of California, Our National Parks, The Yosemite, Travels in Alaska and Steep Trails. They were republished in Britain by Diadem in one volume in 1992 (see Appendix 7 – Bibliography). In all he wrote over 300 articles and 10 major books.
Sadly Muir lost his last fight, a long, drawn-out campaign to save the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite from being flooded. This failure dispirited him and soon after, on Christmas Eve 1914, he died of pneumonia.
His lasting memorials are the world’s national park networks established by those inspired by his vision. His views are perhaps even more relevant today because of the many threats that the modern world poses for the wild places of this fragile planet. In essence Muir’s naturalist philosophy was a simple one, believing that man truly belonged to nature. ‘I only went out for a walk,’ he wrote, ‘and finally decided to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.’
In Memory of John Muir
In Britain the memory of John Muir, the principles by which he lived and his life’s work in saving and conserving wild areas of the world are embodied in the John Muir Trust, a charity founded in 1983. The aims of the trust are simple: to save and conserve wild places. At the time of writing the it owns and manages seven outstanding wild areas, totalling over 20,000 hectares in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, including Britain’s highest mountain, Ben Nevis. The trust is a membership organisation open to all who have an interest in wild places. A regular journal keeps members informed of activities and plans for the future. Further details of the trust can be found on their website at www.johnmuirtrust.org (see Appendix 6).
On the JMT in Yosemite en route to Nevada Falls (Day 1)
Efforts have also been made during recent years to raise the profile of John Muir in his native Scotland. The John Muir Birthplace Trust was founded in September 1998 as a partnership project involving East Lothian Council, the John Muir Trust, Dunbar’s John Muir Association and Dunbar Community Council. The aim of the trust is to secure the future of John Muir’s birthplace in Dunbar and an interpretative centre, focused on Muir’s work, was opened there in 2003. It is now visited by thousands of tourists from all over the world, and provides projects for hundreds of local schoolchildren.
Also in memory of John Muir, East Lothian Council has completed a new long distance path in South-East Scotland, opened in September 2007. The John Muir Way (not Trail!) runs for 45 miles, from Cockburnspath (eastern end of the Southern Upland Way) via Dunbar to the edge of Edinburgh, part of the ultra-long North Sea Coastal Trail. The Way, of course, offers a very different experience to the Trail, but is nevertheless a fitting memorial on this side of the Atlantic, to the founding father of the world wide National Park movement.
Parks along the JMT
The John Muir Trail passes through three of North America’s finest and best-known national parks.
Yosemite is known the world over for its high, spectacular mountains and for some of the most stunning, high and technically difficult rock faces anywhere on earth. Few outdoor people will not know of Half Dome and El Capitan, the latter a huge rock monolith (the largest single granite rock on earth) towering above Yosemite Valley and very popular with the world’s top climbers. Yosemite is a natural wonderland of high mountains, granite cliffs, waterfalls, alpine lakes, tarns and streams. Two of the world’s ten highest waterfalls are found in the park, Upper Yosemite and Ribbon Falls.
Situated in the High Sierras of central California, Yosemite was one of America’s first National Parks (Yellowstone was the first in 1872). It was in fact the first area of the States to be given special protection by an act of Congress in 1864, but was not officially designated a national park until 1st October 1890, due largely to the work and sterling efforts of Muir, President Theodore Roosevelt and other influential figures..
Almost 95% of the 750,000 acre park is unspoilt wilderness. Today it is one of America’s most visited national parks, with over 4 million visitors annually. Most, however, visit only the visitor centre, shops, cafés, restaurants and other amenities