My battered, water-stained copy of The Yosemite was the first thing I put in the bag for our overnight trip to Yosemite National Park. After all, John Muir was the reason I had added Yosemite to my Bucket (aka Before 70) List in the first place. Muir, the revered conservationist, naturalist, Father of the National Parks, had personally invited Drew, me...and thousands of others, with the lyrical magic of his prose. "Nearly all the upper basin of the Merced (River) was displayed, with its sublime domes and canyons, dark upsweeping forest, and glorious array of white peaks deep in the sky, every feature glowing, radiating beauty that pours into our flesh and bones like heat rays from fire....Never before had I seen so glorious a landscape, so boundless an affluence of sublime mountain beauty." ~John Muir, July 15, 1869 (journal entry) As Drew and I followed a slow caravan of cars into Yosemite Valley, I imagined what it must have been like for Muir to walk into the same area 150+ years ago, all by himself. Take away the vehicles, people, lodges, restaurants, gift shops, bars, visitor center, medical clinic, art gallery – and yes – even Starbucks, and Muir would have been left with.....everything. Everything that matters. ![]() In a meadow, bathed in sunlight, open to the sky, with Yosemite Falls to our backs, we paused to complete my personal Yosemite quest. I pulled Muir's book from my purse, turned to an earmarked page and began reading. "No temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite...how softly these rocks are adorned, and how fine and reassuring the company they keep: their feet among beautiful groves and meadows, their brows in the sky..." ~John Muir, The Yosemite Later, upon taking our leave of the park at Lower Yosemite Fall, it was as if Muir himself gave us a parting gift. "In the bright spring mornings the black-walled recess at the foot of the Lower Yosemite Fall is lavishly filed with irised spray...Beheld at a certain distance, [it} seems to be colored, and drifts and wavers from color to color mingling in the foliage of the adjacent trees, without suggesting any relationship to the ordinary rainbow."
~John Muir, The Yosemite
2 Comments
Mimi walker Medenica
4/14/2021 10:27:15 pm
I have never been to Yosemite. After seeing your photos, and reading Muir’s description, I am intrigued. You both look great! Thanks for sharing!
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Vanda
4/15/2021 08:17:40 am
Brilliant! Not only have you begin a bit of travel you are soaking up our National Parks. Love you images and your proses.
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After writing my books, Labyrinth Journeys ~ 50 States, 51 Stories and The Power of Bread, I knew I wasn't finished writing, or journeying. Please join me as I continue both and see where they lead me (and you!) ~Twylla Alexander |