Your Backcountry Guide: . . . . Mon, Jul 22, 10:19AM PST (-0800 GMT)
DIG DISCOVERY #1 –What famous explorer and writer said this about living outdoors in the mountains during his first summer in the Sierra backcountry ? “This is true freedom, a good practical sort of immortality” …………”Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days, inciting at once to work and rest! Days in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us God. Nevermore, however weary, should one faint by the way who gains the blessings of one mountain day; whatever his fate, long life, short life, stormy or calm, he is rich forever.” button
Your Backcountry Guide: . . . . Mon, Jul 22, 10:20AM PST (-0800 GMT)
DIG DISCOVERY #2 – Now pick a few sentences that describe the wonders of the Backcountry from this same journal entry and copy / paste them here in the dig room – choose a description that you find interesting …. button
Your Backcountry Guide: . . . . Mon, Jul 22, 10:20AM PST (-0800 GMT)
DIG DISCOVERY #3 – What President did John Muir take on a famous outdoor camping trip ? button
Your Backcountry Guide: . . . . Mon, Jul 22, 10:20AM PST (-0800 GMT)
DIG DISCOVERY #4 – Where did this famous camping trip take place and when?
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Your Backcountry Guide: . . . . Mon, Jul 22, 10:20AM PST (-0800 GMT)
DIG DISCOVERY #5 – What two places did they camp out in the open?
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Your Backcountry Guide: . . . . Mon, Jul 22, 10:20AM PST (-0800 GMT)
DIG DISCOVERY #6 – On the second night out, where did they go to sleep and what did they find had happened when they woke up ?
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Your Backcountry Guide: . . . . Mon, Jul 22, 10:21AM PST (-0800 GMT)
DIG DISCOVERY #7 – What did Muir and the President talk about on the camping trip and what special preserves were created as a result of this famous adventure?
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Your Backcountry Guide: . . . . Mon, Jul 22, 10:21AM PST (-0800 GMT)
Your Backcountry Guide: . . . . Mon, Jul 22, 10:21AM PST (-0800 GMT)
DIG DISCOVERY #8 – Read this amazing story about John Muir’s night spent in a tree – what was the weather like that made this night of outdoor living so amazing ? button
Your Backcountry Guide: . . . . Mon, Jul 22, 10:24AM PST (-0800 GMT)
FOLLOW-UP ACTIVITY – 
Students, we invite you to write a poem and draw a picture of one of the above OUTDOOR LIVING ADVENTURES so we can include them in our gallery of student art (you can scan them and send them as an email attachment – or – mail us the originals and we will scan them at the Camp headquarters).
Your Backcountry Guide: . . . . Mon, Jul 22, 10:26AM PST (-0800 GMT)
Here are more examples from our student gallery of Muir illustrations 
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Heather: . . . . Mon, Jul 22, 11:39AM PST (-0800 GMT)
4. This famous camping trip took place in 1903 in Yosemite.
Catherine: . . . . Mon, Jul 22, 11:40AM PST (-0800 GMT)
Dig #5 John Muir and Roosevelt camped near the foot of the great sequoia known as the Giant Grizzly the first night and the second night they stayed under the stars near Glacier point.
Catherine: . . . . Mon, Jul 22, 11:42AM PST (-0800 GMT)
Dig #6 The second night while at Glacier point it snowed4-5 inches.
Mrs. Cathy Murray: . . . . Mon, Jul 22, 11:42AM PST (-0800 GMT)
1. This eloquent quote is from John Muir.
Heather: . . . . Mon, Jul 22, 11:42AM PST (-0800 GMT)
5. The two places where they camped out in the open were near the foot of the great sequoia known as the Giant Grizzly and at Glacier Point.
Cressa: . . . . Mon, Jul 22, 11:43AM PST (-0800 GMT)
ID#8 John Muir compares the spectacle of the storm atop a giant sequoia tree to a concert of music and motion uprooting the grandest of trees in Yosemite. I know this tree and visit it when I come here. I also saw two mountain climber scale the magnificient Muir tree.
Mr. Kevin Sauers: . . . . Mon, Jul 22, 11:43AM PST (-0800 GMT)
Dig #4 In 1903 John Muir led President Theodore Roosevelt through Yosemite. While there they made stops at Mariposa Grove, Glacier Point, and the Yosemite Valley. After spending the night at Glacier Point the two men awoke in the morning to find that they were covered with snow
: . . . . Mon, Jul 22, 11:46AM PST (-0800 GMT)
Dig #3 - John Muir took Theodore Roosevelt on the famous outdoor camping trip.
Cressa: . . . . Mon, Jul 22, 11:49AM PST (-0800 GMT)
ID#2 "The testimony of trees growing on flood boulder deposits shows that a century or more has passed since the last master flood came to awaken everything movable to go swirling and dancing on wonderful journeys." Personification!
Marcy, Camp Internet: . . . . Mon, Jul 22, 11:50AM PST (-0800 GMT)
Campers - I did get to your questions in the chat just now ... can you head over there ?
Mrs. Cathy Murray : . . . . Mon, Jul 22, 11:50AM PST (-0800 GMT)
2. Some of the quotes from John Muir's writings that I found intriquing are: "Yonder rises another white skyland." "And hark! The grand thunder billows booming, rolling from ridge to ridge, followed by the faithful shower." "Singing Nature's old love song with solemn enthusiasm, while the stars peering through the leaf-roof seemed to join in the white water's song." "The serenity of this mountain weather in the spring, just when Nature's pulses are beating highest, is one of its greatest charms."
Mr. Kevin Sauers: . . . . Mon, Jul 22, 11:54AM PST (-0800 GMT)
Dig #8 The night that John Muir spent in a tree was incredibly windy. Muir used words like “Gale” to describe the force of the wind and described how the force of the wind caused the trees to sway back and forth in a 25 – 30 degree arc
Josef: . . . . Mon, Jul 22, 11:55AM PST (-0800 GMT)
dig #7 - John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt talked about what was at stake at Yosemite and in wilderness lands nationwide. Roosevelt created many new National Parks, including Yosemite.
Mrs. Cathy Murray : . . . . Mon, Jul 22, 11:57AM PST (-0800 GMT)
3. The President that John Muir took on a camping trip is Theodore Roosevelt. This camping trip changed the nation! This shaped the President's attitude about preserving our wilderness and he soon became the author of proclamations that created many new National Parks, including Yosemite!
Heather: . . . . Mon, Jul 22, 11:58AM PST (-0800 GMT)
5. The two places where they camped out in the open were near the foot of the great sequoia known as the Giant Grizzly and at Glacier Point.
Mr. Creason: . . . . Sat, Aug 17, 10:22AM PST (-0800 GMT)
#3 Theodore Roosevelt
Mr. Creason: . . . . Sat, Aug 17, 10:29AM PST (-0800 GMT)
#1 John Muir
Ms. Denise, teacher: . . . . Sat, Aug 17, 10:31AM PST (-0800 GMT)
#1 This quote was written by John Muir, a naturalist from Scotland.
Mrs. Mason@Nightingale22: . . . . Sat, Aug 17, 10:34AM PST (-0800 GMT)
Dig Discovery #1 It was John Muir who said " This is true freedom, a good practical sort of immortality" about living outdoors.
Mr. Creason: . . . . Sat, Aug 17, 10:40AM PST (-0800 GMT)
#4 The camping trip was to Yosemite in 1903.
Ms. Denise: . . . . Sat, Aug 17, 10:41AM PST (-0800 GMT)
The camping trip occured at Yosemite in 1903.
Mr. Creason: . . . . Sat, Aug 17, 10:47AM PST (-0800 GMT)
#5 They camp out at Glacier Point and the great sequoia known as Giant Grizzly.
Mrs. Mason@Nightingale22: . . . . Sat, Aug 17, 10:47AM PST (-0800 GMT)
Dig Discovery # 2: I found the following observation about the differences between the ways the Native Americans treat the land and the ways the white man treats the land interesting.:
Indians walk softly and hurt the landscape hardly more than the birds and squirrels, and their brush and bark huts last hardly longer than those of wood rats, while their more enduring monuments, excepting those wrought on the forests by the fires they made to improve their hunting grounds, vanish in a few centuries. How different are most of those of the white man, especially on the lower gold region, --roads blasted in the solid rock, wild streams dammed and tamed and turned out of their channels and led along the sides of cañons and valleys to work in mines like slaves. Crossing from ridge to ridge, high in the air, on long straddling trestles as if flowing on stilts, or down and up across valleys and hills, imprisoned in iron pipes to strike and wash away hills and miles of the skin of the mountain's face, riddling, stripping every gold gully and flat. These are the white man's marks made in a few feverish years, to say nothing of mills, fields, villages, scattered hundreds of miles along the flank of the Range. Long will it be ere these marks are effaced, though Nature is doing what she can, replanting, gardening, sweeping away old dams and flumes, leveling gravel and boulder piles, patiently trying to heal every raw scar.
Denise, teach: . . . . Sat, Aug 17, 10:50AM PST (-0800 GMT)
#6 Roosevelt and Muir camped at Glacier Point and awoke to find 5" of snow upon them.
Denise, teach: . . . . Sat, Aug 17, 10:56AM PST (-0800 GMT)
They talked about the importance of preserving the wilderness and what was at stake at Yosemite. They created the National Park system and Yosemite was the nation's first national park.
DBruns, GVE teacher: . . . . Wed, Aug 21, 2:26PM PST (-0800 GMT)
1. This is a quote from John Muir.
DBruns, GVE teacher: . . . . Wed, Aug 21, 2:30PM PST (-0800 GMT)
1. This is a quote from John Muir.
DBruns, GVE teacher: . . . . Wed, Aug 21, 2:30PM PST (-0800 GMT)
2. "Oh, these vast, calm, measureless mountain days, inciting at once to work and rest! Days in whose light everything seems equally divine, opening a thousand windows to show us God."
DBruns, GVE teacher: . . . . Wed, Aug 21, 2:31PM PST (-0800 GMT)
1. This is a quote from John Muir.
DBruns, GVE teacher: . . . . Wed, Aug 21, 2:31PM PST (-0800 GMT)
3. In 1903, John Muir took part in bringing a group of visitors to the Yosemite where they began their visit in the famous Mariposa Groves. This group of visitors was lead by President Theodore Roosevelt, an avowed outdoor living enthusiast.
DBruns, GVE teacher: . . . . Wed, Aug 21, 2:32PM PST (-0800 GMT)
1. This is a quote from John Muir.
DBruns, GVE teacher: . . . . Wed, Aug 21, 2:33PM PST (-0800 GMT)
4. Muir and Roosevelt went to the Yosemite where they began their visit in the famous Mariposa Groves.
DBruns, GVE teacher: . . . . Wed, Aug 21, 2:35PM PST (-0800 GMT)
1. This is a quote from John Muir.
DBruns, GVE teacher: . . . . Wed, Aug 21, 2:35PM PST (-0800 GMT)
1. This is a quote from John Muir.
DBruns, GVE teacher: . . . . Wed, Aug 21, 2:36PM PST (-0800 GMT)
5. to the Yosemite where they began their visit in the famous Mariposa Groves.
DBruns, GVE teacher: . . . . Wed, Aug 21, 2:38PM PST (-0800 GMT)
5. They camped overnight near the foot of the great sequoia known as the Giant Grizzly. In the morning they enjoyed campfire cooking and then climbed on horses to head towards the Yosemite Valley. By nightfall they arrived at a campsite near Glacier Point, and with only layers of blanket for warmth, spent their second night out in the open, beneath the stars.
DBruns, GVE teacher: . . . . Wed, Aug 21, 2:40PM PST (-0800 GMT)
6. After the second night out in the open, the awoke in the morning to find a 4-5" layer of snow upon them.
DBruns, GVE teacher: . . . . Wed, Aug 21, 2:41PM PST (-0800 GMT)
7. Muir had intimate discussions with Roosevelt about what was at stake at Yosemite and in wilderness lands nationwide. This shaped the President's attitude about preserving our wilderness and he soon became the author of proclamations that created many new National Parks, including Yosemite.
DBruns, GVE teacher: . . . . Wed, Aug 21, 2:47PM PST (-0800 GMT)
8. The weather was stormy, with gale-force winds.