A-Hunting Trees With John Muir — From Roosevelt’s Autobiography
When I first visited California, it was my good fortune to see the “big trees,” the Sequoias, and then to travel down into the Yosemite with John Muir. Of course, of all people in the world, he was the one with whom it was best worth while thus to see the Yosemite....
John Muir met me with a couple of packers and two mules to carry our tent, bedding, and food for a three days’ trip.
The first night was clear, and we lay down in the darkening aisles of the great Sequoia grove. The majestic trunks, beautiful in colour and in symmetry, rose round us like the pillars of a mightier cathedral than ever was conceived even by the fervour of the Middle Ages.
Hermit thrushes sang beautifully in the evening, and again with a burst of wonderful music at dawn. I was interested and a little surprised to find that, unlike John Burroughs, John Muir cared little for birds or bird songs, and knew little about them. The hermit thrushes meant nothing to him, the trees and the flowers and the cliffs, everything. The only birds he noticed or cared for, were some that were very conspicuous, such as the water-ousels—always particular favourites of mine too.
The second night, we camped in a snow-storm on the edge of the cañon walls, under the spreading limbs of a grove of mighty silver fir. And next day, we went down into the wonderland of the Valley itself.
I shall always be glad that I was in the Yosemite with John Muir, and in the Yellowstone with John Burroughs.
Theodore Roosevelt (Condensed)