“Yosemite Park is a place of rest a refuge from the roar and dust and weary nervous wasting work of the lowlands in which one gains the advantages of both solitude and society. Nowhere will you find more company of a soothing peace-be-still kind. Your animal fellow beings so seldom regarded in civilization and every rock-brow and mountain stream and lake and every plant soon come to be regarded as brothers even one learns to like the storms and clouds and tireless winds. This one noble park is big enough and rich enough for a whole life of study and aesthetic enjoyment. It is good for everybody no matter how benumbed with care encrusted with a mail of business habits like a tree with bark. None can escape its charms. Its natural beauty cleans and warms like a fire and you will be willing to stay forever in one place like a tree.
– John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir