As
I make these journal entries here in the northern Rocky
Mountains, I am far from the place I remember. It is
unseasonably cold. Late winter snow and ice rime everything
in sight. The images I summon are from the warm summers
of my youth. No doubt things have changed—it is
in the nature of wild places—but my feelings have
grown stronger and have been validated by a lifetime
spent in places like Sequoia and Kings Canyon. In my
thoughts, I journey back to the distant shining mountains
of the southern Sierra.
A
sojourn in the Sierra Nevada is a meditation. I think
about the scale of things, about my mortality, and the
tenacity and diversity of life. Nature is sovereign
here. Everything I experience is an affirmation of her
mastery of form and function, a celebration of her artistry.
Sere foothills, forests shrouded in morning mist, wind-swept
alpine summits, water tumbling through hidden canyons,
icy lakes, serendipitous encounters with animals—all
prompt me to reestablish my connections with wild things.
In a world much larger than my own, I restore my sense
of place, and consider the forces that have made this
experience possible...
However
inadequate they may be in describing the grandeur of
the Sierra and its stately patriarchs, words do conjure
images. The Spanish, the first Europeans to sight the
range from afar in 1772, called it una gran sierra nevada—a
great snow-covered range. John Muir’s description
is more evocative. Upon seeing the high sunlit world
of silver-gray peaks clothed in snow, reaching upward
into the crystalline air, he called them “the
range of light.” In Muir’s eyes, the sequoias
were “giants grouped in pure temple stands.”
“Of all the conifers in the world,” he said,
they are “the noblest of a noble race.”
—From
“In The Company of Giants” by George B.
Robinson
In
The Company of Giants
George B. Robinson
32 pages with 30 color images. 9”x9”
Translations are available in German and Japanese.
ISBN 0-939365-63-4 (English Edition)
$5.95 
ISBN 0-939365-91-X (German Edition)
$7.95
ISBN 0-939365-92-8 (Japanese Edition)
$7.95
- OTHER TITLES THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST
 Sequoia &
Kings Canyon: A Place Where Giants Dwell by George B. Robinson
- Sequoia & Kings Canyon Postcard
Book
- Yosemite: A Personal Discovery
by Ardeth Huntington
 Yosemite: Storm of Beauty. Narrated by Lee Stetson
|
