Reading Notes Week 6: John Muir

This reading was extremely insightful and really gave me a true sense of the state that I live in. I had heard of John Muir but never really understood his importance in the history of California. I actually went to an elementary school is Antioch called John Muir and always wondered who he was and why there was a school named after him. The story starts off with John Muir exploring the Sierra Nevada. The way that Muir conveys his astonishment for the area really shows you just how much he liked California. He begins by portraying just how vast the area really is, proclaiming "These two ranges coming together in curves on the north and south inclose a magnificent basin, with a level floor more than 400 miles long, and from 35 to 60 miles wide." He also talks about how "The Sierra is about 500 miles long, 70 miles wide, and from 7000 to nearly 15,000 feet high." It really puts in to perspective just how big the range is and you get a good grasp of what Muir is seeing when he writes this. Muir continues in to talking about the Yosemite and the valley. He talks about the rocks that make up the valley as well as the rivers that flow through it. Muir uses words like "the shining river that flows in tranquil beauty down the middle of each one of them" that really help paint a picture of what Muir is seeing. In all this writing shows just how beautiful California really is. It also shows just how different what he is seeing was. Since this was written many years ago many of the places he talks about retain their natural beauty that might be lost after many years of human intervention.