John Muir worked to create several national parks and monuments including the Grand Canyon in 1908. In the late winter of 1909, Muir met and traveled with fellow naturalist John Burroughs to the south rim of the Grand Canyon and to southern California.

“It is a vast wilderness of rocks in a sea of light, colored and glowing like oak and maple words in autumn, when the sun gold is richest.” John Muir in Steep Trails