Gentle Wilderness The Sierra Nevada Author:John Muir Presented are John Muir's text from "My First Summer in the Sierra" and Richard Kauffman's photographs. David Brower writes the foreward and edits the text of Muir's book. — John Muir first traveled into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada range not long after the end of the Civil War. Having witnessed the beauty of the Tuolumne Meadows and El Cap... more »itan, he vowed to return. In the summer of 1869 he signed on with a crew of shepherds and helped drive a flock of 2500 sheep toward the headwaters of the Merced River.
The diary he kept while tending the flock forms the heart of "My First Summer in the Sierra", published in 1911. The book, full of the concerns Muir would later voice as America's foremost preservationist and wildlands advocate, would go on to inspire its readers to seeks out such places. It stands among the enduring classics of environmental literature.« less