John Muir and Yosemite

The breathtaking landscape of Yosemite National Park, featuring serene river waters and majestic granite cliffs bathed in the warm glow of the setting sun.

Photographs © / Adobe Stock

John Muir: Guardian of Yosemite

John Muir’s poetic reflections have inspired generations to see Yosemite’s grandeur beyond its surface: “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine into trees.” His journey to California in 1868 marked the beginning of a lifelong dedication to the wilderness as a glaciologist, writer, and wilderness activist. Muir famously wrote with a quill crafted from a golden eagle feather he found on Mount Hoffmann, capturing the spirit of nature in his persuasive ecological essays.

Born in Scotland in 1838, Muir immigrated to Wisconsin with his family at age 11. Uninspired by life on a homestead, he found work in a factory, where a near-blinding industrial accident sparked his determination to explore and study the natural world. Muir briefly attended the University of Wisconsin to study natural sciences but ultimately found his true calling in what he termed the “University of Wilderness.”

Muir first visited Yosemite in 1868, and the experience left such a profound impression that he returned the following year. He worked as a ranch hand before becoming a shepherd, guiding a flock of 2,000 sheep to Tuolumne Meadows in the High Sierra. While tending the flock, he studied the region’s flora and fauna and sketched the landscapes that would later appear in My First Summer in the Sierra. Afterward, Muir took a job at a sawmill near Lower Yosemite Fall. During his time there, he built a cabin by Yosemite Creek to fall asleep to the sound of rushing water. However, conflicts with his employer, James Hutchings, who resented Muir’s growing prominence as a Yosemite advocate, led to Muir leaving the position in 1871.

Two months later, Muir published his first article on glaciers in the New York Tribune, quickly earning recognition as a naturalist. He formed connections with notable figures such as botanists Asa Gray and Albert Kellogg, artist William Keith, and writer Jeanne Carr. These relationships helped amplify Muir’s voice as an advocate for nature.

By the 1870s, Muir’s articles highlighting the need for forest preservation gained widespread attention. His 1876 piece, “In God’s First Temples: How Shall We Preserve Our Forests?” criticized the destruction of California’s woodlands. During the 1880s, he focused on the damage caused by livestock in the Yosemite Grant, particularly in the fragile ecosystems of the High Sierra.

In 1889, Muir persuaded Robert Underwood Johnson, editor of Century Magazine, to visit Tuolumne Meadows and witness the damage caused by sheep grazing. Their collaboration led to the establishment of Yosemite National Park in 1890, which expanded protection beyond the state-controlled Yosemite Grant.

While his advocacy for nature was thriving, Muir also found time for family. Encouraged by his friend Jeanne Carr, Muir married Louisa “Louie” Strentzel in 1880, a horticulturist’s daughter from Martinez, California. Although his visits to Yosemite became less frequent after his marriage, Muir continued to travel extensively, climbing Mount Rainier in 1888 and embarking on expeditions to Alaska.

The last 25 years of Muir’s life were devoted to writing, traveling, and leading the Sierra Club, which he co-founded in 1892. His advocacy influenced President Theodore Roosevelt during their iconic 1903 Yosemite camping trip, leading to the return of Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove to federal management in 1906. Muir’s writings also played a significant role in the creation of Grand Canyon and Sequoia National Parks.

Toward the end of his life, Muir and the Sierra Club fought passionately against the construction of the O’Shaughnessy Dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley. Although the campaign ultimately failed, it marked the beginning of the modern environmental movement. Muir passed away on Christmas Eve, 1914, just over a year after Congress approved the dam’s construction.

Though his time living in Yosemite was brief, from 1868 to 1874, Muir’s experiences in the Sierra shaped his life and legacy. He inspired a movement to protect not only the beauty of natural areas but their ecological significance. As Muir wrote in The Yosemite (1912), “But no temple made with hands can compare with Yosemite. Every rock in its wall seems to glow with life.”