Graham White (Ed.), Sacred Summits: John Muir's Greatest Climbs,
Canongate Books, Edinburgh, UK, 1999, 164 pp.
Sierra Club files
"The mountains are calling and I must go."
— John Muir (Letter to Sarah Galloway,
3 September, 1873, in Bade, Life and Letters, I, p. 385
Chapter 6: Mountain Thoughts by John Muir
(Muir's first years in Yosemite, gathered by Linnie Marsh Wolfe
and published in John of the Mountains in 1938)
Mountains holy as Sinai. No mountains I know of are so alluring. None so hospitable, kindly, tenderly inspiring.
It seems strange that everybody does not come at their call. They are given, like the Gospel, without money
and without price. 'Tis heaven alone that is given away. Here is calm so deep, grasses cease waving. Wonderful
how completely everything in wild nature fits into us, as if truly part and parent of us. The sun shines not on us
but in us. The rivers flow not pas, but through us, thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fibre and cell of the substance
of our bodies, making them glide and sing. The trees wave and the flowers bloom in our bodies as well as our souls,
and every bird song, wind song, and tremendous storm song of the rocks in the heart of the mountains is our song,
our very own, and sings our love. The Song of God, sounding on forever. So pure and sure and universal is the
harmony, it matters not where we are, where we strike in on the wild lowland plains. We are not to go to the
mountains, and on the mountains we care not to go to the plains. But as soon as we are absorbed in the harmony,
plain, mountain, calm, storm, lilies, and sequoias, forests and meads are only different strands of many-colored
Light are one in the sunbeam!
What wonders lie in every mountain day! (p. 80)
No amount of word-making will ever make a single soul to know these mountains. As well seek to warm the naked
and frost-bitten by lectures on caloric & pictures of flame. One day's exposure to mountains is better than cartloads
of books. See how willingly Nature poses herself upon photographers' plates. No earthly chemicals are so sensitive
as those of the human soul. All that is required is exposure, and purity of material. 'The pure in heart shall see God!' (p. 83)
When we dwell with mountains, see them face to face, every day, they seem as creatures with a sort of life—
friends subject to moods, now talking, now taciturn, with whom we converse as man to man. They wear many
spiritual robes, at times an aureole, something like the glory of the old painters put around the heads of saints.
Especially is this seen on lone mountains, like Shasta, or on great domes standing single and apart. (p. 86)
Earth has no sorrows that earth cannot heal, or heaven cannot heal, for the earth as seen in the clean wilds
of the mountains is about as divine as anything the heart of man can conceive! (p. 87)
Chapter 7: Prayers in the Higher Mountain Temples—
or a Geologist's Winter Walk by John Muir
(1873 Letter to Jeanne Carr, included in Steep Trails,
edited by William Frederic Bade, published in 1918)
When I reached Yosemite, all the rocks seemed talkative, and more telling and loveable than ever. They are dear
friends, and seemed to have warm blood gushing through their granite flesh; and I love them with a love intensified
by long and close companionship. After I had bathed in the bright river, sauntered over the meadows, conversed
with the domes, and played with the pines, I still felt blurred and weary, as if tainted in some way with the sky of
your streets. I determined, therefore, to run out for a while to say my prayers in the higher mountain temples.
'The days are sun-full.' I said, 'and, though now winter, no great danger need be encountered, and no sudden
storm will block my return, if I am watchful.' (pp. 88-89)
Chapter 8: A Perilous Night on Shasta's Summit by John Muir
(Muir's first solo exploration of Shasta was around November 2, 1874.
His second climb was on April 28, 1875 when he led a geodetic survey party
to the summit. His 3rd climb two days later on April 30, 1875 with Jerome Fay
was a near-death experience. The essay was included in Steep Trails,
edited by William Frederic Bade, published in 1918)
Toward the end of summer, after a light, open winter, one may reach the summit of Mount Shasta without passing
over much snow, by keeping on the crest of a long narrow ridge, mostly bare, that extends from near the camp-
ground at the timber-line. But on my fist excursion to the summit the whole mountain, down to its low swelling
base, was smoothly laden with loose fresh snow, presenting a most glorious mass of winter mountain scenery,
in the midst of which I scrambled and reveled or lay snugly snowbound, enjoying the fertile clouds and the snow-
bloom in all their growing, drifting grandeur. (p. 95)
When I said that I was simply taking a walk, and that icy Shasta was my mark, I was invariably admonished that I
had come on a dangerous quest. The time was far too late, the snow was too loose and deep to climb, and I should
be lost in drifts and slides. When I hinted that the new snow was beautiful and storms not so bad as they were
called, my advisers shook their heads in token of superior knowledge and declared the ascent of 'Shasta Butte'
through loose snow impossible. Nevertheless, before noon of the second of November I was in the frosty azure of
the utmost summit. (p. 96)
The mountain rises 10,000 feet above the general level of the country, in blank exposure to the deep upper currents
of the sky, and no labyrinth of peaks and canyons I had ever been in seemed to me so dangerous as those immense
slopes, bare against the sky— When tired with walking I still wllowed slowly upward on all fours. The steepness
of the slope— 35 degrees in some places— made any kind of progress fatiguing, while small avalanches were
being constantly set in motion in the steepest places. But the bracing air and the sublime beauty of the snowy
expanse thrilled every nerve and made absolute exhaustion impossible. I seemed to be walking and wallowing
in a cloud; but, holding steadily onward, by half-past ten o'clock I had gained the highest summit. (p. 98)
On the 28th of April, 1875, I led a party up the mountain for the purpose of making a survey of the summit with
reference to the location of the Geodetic monument. On the 30th, accompanied by Jerome Day, I made another
ascent to make some Barometrical observations. (p. 101)
The creative sun shone glorious on the vast expanse of cloudland; hill and dale, mountain and valley springing into
existence responsive to his rays and steadily developing in beauty and individuality. One huge mountain-cone of
cloud, corresponding to Mount Shasta in these newborn cloud-ranges, rose close alongside with a visible motion,
its firm, polished bosses seeming so near and substantial that we almost fancied we might leap down upon them
from where we stood and make our way to the lowlands. (p. 102)
In the afternoon we reached Strawberry Valley and fell asleep. Next morning we seemed to have risen from the
dead. My bedroom was flooded with sunshine, and from the window I saw the great white Shasta cone clad in
forests and clouds and bearing them loftily in the sky. Everything seemed full and radiant with the freshness and
beauty and enthusiasm of youth. Sisson's children came in with flowers and covered my bed, and the storm on
the mountain-top vanished like a dream. (p. 108)
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