A new book allows you to read how John Muir saw Yosemite National Park/Yosemite Conservancy

It's well known how inspired John Muir was by Yosemite National Park, and how the majesty of the park impacted him. With a small book in your back pocket, you can wander the park as Muir did and appreciate how the settings affected him.

The book, John Muir's Grand Yosemite, Musings and Sketches, was produced by the Yosemite Conservancy. What I found really cool was how Mike Wurtz, who pulled the book together, paired Muir's words with sketches he made arond the park, and then added his own impressions.

For example, in viewing Cathedral Peak in the park's high country, Muir wrote that, "(T)here is a cluster of iconic, splintered granite peaks near where the highest sources of the Tuolumne, Merced, and San Joaquin rivers are small, sparkling, singing streams. One of these peaks is exactly like an old cathedral and is called 'Cathedral Peak.' I rolled a loaf of bread in a pair of blankets and started to explore these mountains. I reached the top-most spires of the grand old church about noon of the first day and sat down to rest and to eat. And now Doctor (Muir's brother, Daniel), here is a strange thing, I was seated on the brink of a precipice about 7,000 feet in depth, and in eating, whenever I looked up I was hungry, but when I looked down I was full."

In his notes, Wurtz pointed out (in part) that "(T)he highest parts of Cathedral Peak extended above the highest of the High Sierra glaciers, so instead of resembling a smooth, rounded dome, it is a sharp, craggy point called a horn. Cathedral Peak contains a specific type of granite-like rock -- Cathedral Peak Granodiorite -- that was named after this location but can be found throughout Tuolume Meadows...."

Across from these thoughts is Muir's sketch of Cathedral Peak as seen from Tuolumne Meadows.

The book, which measures roughly 5-and-a-quarter inches by 8-and-a-quarter inches and only a half-inch thick, tracks Muir's treks across the park, from the Yosemite Valley, to the west side of Yosemite, and up along the Tioga Road. It's a great resource to explore the park and see it as Muir did, and to draw your own inspiration. The only improvement would have been to add extra pages for you to leave your own thoughts.