Editor's Introduction - The wilderness areas surrounding the John Muir Trail in the Sierra-Nevada Range of California and Nevada, and the Continental Divide Trail in the Bob Marshall Wilderness of Montana represent some of the most beautiful, wild, and enamoring places on earth. Their sheer vastness harbors trekking routes measured in weeks rather than days - a rarity among American Wilderness. The author - my son - and I count the High Sierra and the Bob Marshall Wilderness among our favorite trekking, packrafting, and fishing destinations. So when he made the proposal to me to investigate the conservationists whose actions and ideologies led to their preservation as part of a high school social studies assignment, I eagerly accepted the opportunity to bring a bit of historical biography to the readers of Backpacking Light - in an effort to connect us to the people who labored tirelessly to help us travel lightly through these incredible places. Enjoy the read. - Ryan Jordan
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When discussing a dystopian future where all of what was wilderness has been turned into manicured resorts, summer cottages, and cities, the environmentalist Aldo Leopold states that “when that day comes dead too will be a part of our Americanism” (qtd in Marshall 142). He means that the urge to explore is essential to the American spirit and without it, without a frontier, America loses a part of itself. With rapid industrialization, urbanization, and suburbanization occurring in America during the 19th and 20th centuries, men such as Theodore Roosevelt, Lee Metcalf, John Muir, and Bob Marshall stepped up to defend what wilderness was still left before Leopold’s dystopian future became reality. And although both Muir and Marshall played a crucial role in the preservation of America’s wilderness, John Muir was primarily responsible for the philosophy behind the wilderness movement while Robert Marshall was an early pragmatist for the wilderness movement.
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John Muir and Robert Marshall: Actions and Ideologies
Nice read. Good job Chase.
I nice article with some great pics. Thanks, guys!
Wow- that was originally a paper for high school? Wish I wrote like that when I was in high school!! Well done. Very nice read. (And some great prose to boot!)
Very well done indeed. An inspiring read that has given me some hope that we may yet avoid that dystopian future, for the responsibility to preserve what Muir, Marshall, and others fought so hard to achieve will fall on the shoulders of Chase's generation.
You are off to a good start.
Great job! Thanks for putting this together!
Thank you for the article; it was informative and interesting.
The author may want to have it proofread and edited. For example, he seems to confuse the word "equivocate" with "equate" or "be commensurate", perhaps.
Very nice indeed!
Allow me to propose an exercise for other readers.
Muir, Marshall, Leopold … were we to carve a Mount Rushmore style monument commemorating the fathers of the Wilderness Movement, who's would be the fourth face on the mountain?
(NO, the irony of that preposterous idea is not lost on me)
Sarah Palin?
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