Steep Trails

California-Utah-Nevada-Washington-Oregon-The Grand Canyon


by

John Muir



EDITOR'S NOTE




The papers brought together in this volume have, in a general way,
been arranged in chronological sequence. They span a period of
twenty-nine years of Muir's life, during which they appeared as
letters and articles, for the most part in publications of limited and
local circulation. The Utah and Nevada sketches, and the two San
Gabriel papers, were contributed, in the form of letters, to the San
Francisco Evening Bulletin toward the end of the seventies. Written
in the field, they preserve the freshness of the author's first
impressions of those regions. Much of the material in the chapters on
Mount Shasta first took similar shape in 1874. Subsequently it was
rewritten and much expanded for inclusion in Picturesque California,
and the Region West of the Rocky Mountains, which Muir began to edit
in 1888. In the same work appeared the description of Washington and
Oregon. The charming little essay "Wild Wool" was written for the