Happy Muir Day to You

Remember your 30th birthday? Or perhaps you're still looking forward to this milestone. Did you do something special, were you surrounded by family and/or friends, did you go someplace nice? Turning 30 is a big moment for many of us. One hundred and fifty-two years ago John Muir observed his 30th, newly arrived in California, far from home and friends. When Muir got to California he wasn't famous, he wasn't from an important family, and he didn't have much money. He was a blue-collar nobody, with an accent from his childhood in another country.

He'd come to San Francisco by ship from New York (via train across Panama), took a ferry to Oakland, and walked to Yosemite from there, via Pacheco Pass and the Coulterville Free Trail. He was expressly focused on seeing Yosemite, as he'd read about the Valley and the sequoias back east. We often picture him alone but he journeyed with another traveler, who'd been on the ship with him. He and Joseph Chilwell spent about two springtime weeks exploring Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove (he went right past the sequoias of Tuolumne and Merced Groves unawares), and he met Galen Clark along the way. The Valley and Grove were already protected lands, granted by Washington, D.C. to the care of Sacramento a few years prior. After their visit he and his companion left the mountains to seek ranch work in the lowest foothills near Snelling.

Somewhere on this short trek, Muir turns 30. How excited he must've been, exploring this new place at this vibrant time of year - and how daunting to be solo without Instagram, Zoom or TripAdvisor. Was there cake? Candles? Any presents? Did he even tell anyone it was his birthday? Just over a year later, Muir returns to the mountains with the sheep. It's a couple of years after that point that he starts to transition from the life of a transient laborer to that of a writer/naturalist, then conservationist and widely known public figure.

I think we are lucky to have had someone as generously-minded as Muir (and Clark, whose 206th birthday was 3 weeks ago) passing through Yosemite. I truly hope that someone wished him a happy birthday, raised a glass, or thought of him from home in Wisconsin or Scotland. May we all give a moment today to turn our thoughts to Muir's contributions to our lives...