When John Muir traveled to California in 1868, he found the pristine mountain ranges that would inspire his lifes work. The Mountains of California is the culmination of the ten years Muir spent in the Sierra Nevadas, studying every crag, crook, and valley with great care and contemplation.Bill McKibben writes in his Introduction that Muir invents, by sheer force of his love, an entirely new vocabulary and grammar of the wild . . . a language of ecstasy and exuberance. The Mountains of California is as vibrant and vital today as when it was written over a century ago. This Modern Library Paperback Classic includes the photographs and line drawings from the original 1898 edition.