Inspired by his love for the mountains and forests-especially the high peaks and towering Sequoias that loomed almost out of reach, naturalist John Muir settled in California in 1868 to study the region's flora and fauna. The Mountains of California, a record of his time in the Sierras, has become an American classic. Written with a scientist's keen and accurate eye and a naturalist's poetic appreciation of nature, it brings together Muir's writings on geological history and accounts of his mountaineering adventures, along with his observations of California's plant and animal life. His verbal and pictorial depictions of the landscape he fought so fiercely to save can be appreciated both as an account as a life in the mountains and as a call for the preservation of America's forests and the establishment of national parks and reservations.