John Muir
Today is John Muir’s birthday! He was born April 21, 1838. He had a profound influence on how Americans viewed our wild lands and his influence led to the establishment of many of our National Parks and other protected lands. He was nicknamed “The Father of our National Parks”. Tomorrow, April 22, is also Earth Day, so I am combining the two in this article.
Here are photos from some of my favorite national and state parks along with quotes from John Muir.
“How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains! To behold this alone is worth the pains of any excursion a thousand times over.”
Acadia, Maine
Sunrise, Acadia National Park
Evening, Jordan Pond, Acadia National Park
“The mountains are calling and I must go.”
Arches, Utah
Double Arch at Night
Balanced Rock
“Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life.”
Big Bend, Texas
Sunset, “The Window”, Chisos Basin
Boquillas Canyon, Rio Grande River
“I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.”
Bryce Canyon, Utah
Sunrise at the Bryce Canyon Amphitheater
Bryce Canyon at Dusk
“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine into trees.”
Canyonlands, Utah
Grand View Point
“Another glorious day, the air as delicious to the lungs as nectar to the tongue.”
Capitol Reef, Utah
Capitol Reef
“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”
Dead Horse Point, Utah
Dead Horse Point
“To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world.”
Denali, Alaska
Denali and Wonder Lake
Northern Lights
“The snow is melting into music.”
Grand Staircase Escalante, Utah
Grand Staircase-Escalante
“Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”
Great Sand Dunes, Colorado
Deer, Great Sand Dunes
“This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor ever rising.”
Mount Rainier, Washington
Last Light on Mt. Rainier
“Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another.”
Olympic, Washington
Ruby Beach
“When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty.”
Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
Bear Lake, Hallett Peak, and Flattop Mountain in the Moonlight
Storm Clouds Rolling In. Hallett Peak and Flattop Mountain
“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.”
White Sands, New Mexico
White Sands
Yucca, Moon, Venus
“Rocks and waters, etc., are words of God, and so are men. We all flow from one fountain Soul. All are expressions of one Love.”
Yosemite, California
Last Light on El Capitan
Stars Over El Capitan
“In Yosemite Valley, one morning about two o’clock I was aroused by an earthquake; and though I had never before enjoyed a storm of this sort, the strange, wild thrilling motion and rumbling could not be mistaken, and I ran out of my cabin, near the Sentinel Rock, both glad and frightened, shouting, ‘A noble earthquake!’ “
Zion, Utah
Petrified Sand Dunes
Zion
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