"...perhaps more than all, I was animated by a mountaineer's eagerness to get my feet in the snow once more, and my head into the clear sky, after lying dormant all winter at the level of the sea." ... "All the wild world is beautiful, and it matters but little where we go, to highlands or lowlands, woods or plains...so universally true is this, the spot where we chance to be always seems the best and it requires a distinct effort of the will to get oneself in motion for a change of place." ... "One is constantly reminded of the infinite lavishness and fertility of Nature's inexhaustible abundance amid what seem enormous waste. And yet when we look into any of her operations that lie within reach of our minds, we learn that no particle of her material is wasted or worn out. It is eternally flowing from use to use, beauty to yet higher beauty: and we soon cease to lament waste and death, and rather rejoice and exult in the imperishable, unspendable wealth of the universe, and faithfully watch and wait the reappearance of everything that melts and fades and dies about us, feeling sure that its next appearance will be better and more beautiful than the last." ... quotes by John Muir; photo courtesy David Hough