Book excerpt: The Mountains of California is Muir's tribute to the beauties of the Sierra. When he came to California and finally settled in San Francisco, John Muir immediately left for a visit to Yosemite, a place he had only read about. Seeing it for the first time, Muir noted that "He was overwhelmed by the landscape, scrambling down steep cliff faces to get a closer look at the waterfalls, whooping and howling at the vistas, jumping tirelessly from flower to flower." He climbed a number of mountains, including Cathedral Peak and Mount Dana, and hiked the old Indian trail down Bloody Canyon to Mono Lake. He vividly described not only his journeys through the mountains, valleys and glaciers of Sierra, but also the nature and geology of the area.