The Camping Trip that Changed America

Yosemite Valley was a vast wilderness, home to giant sequoias. And the famous naturalist John Muir wanted to keep it that way. Muir feared what would happen if our nation's wilderness went unprotected. So in 1903, he invited President Theodore Roosevelt to join him on a California camping trip to discuss the impending crisis. Here with glorious art from Caldecott-medalist Mordicai Gerstein that captures the scale and grandeur of Yosemite, is the little-known story of that momentous excursion. Camping in the uncharted woods, the two men saw sights and held discussions that would stay with them for the rest of their lives and forever change the face of our nation's landscape.