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Kimes Entry Number
219
Original Date
4-1-1898
Publication
The Atlantic Monthly, v. 81, no. 486
Page/Column
pp. 509-522
Recommended Citation
Muir, John, "Yellowstone National Park." (1898). John Muir: A Reading Bibliography by Kimes (Muir articles 1866-1986). 245.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/245
William and Maymie Kimes Annotation
This essay contains much of no. 165 edited, but in addition gives a brief history of the park, describes many more of its outstanding features, and chronicles the story of its creation through geological ages. Muir recounts what the tourist is apt to experience on the usual short, hurried visit. He urges the visitor to go beyond the ""wagon roads and hotels"" saying in his now-familiar words that have been quoted more often than anything else he wrote: ""Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. Camp out among the grasses and gentians of glacier meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of Nature's darlings. Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but Nature's sources never fail.""