Life Lessons on the Sierra Trail: 40 Years’ Experiences in the John Muir Wilderness

A self-described parable, this travelogue draws on the author’s forty-plus years of experience leading packhorses through the John Muir Wilderness in the Sierra Mountains. In it, a young man named Pablo takes a summer job with a horse packer to get away from his directionless existence before going off to college and his future. His childhood love of horses, and his mother’s aching feet, get him a job with Dr. Clyde, wherein Pablo finds himself far from the city and immersed in the natural world, horses, and rhythms of life. Long monologues from Dr. Clyde along the trail illustrate all kinds of life values to Pablo, and the reader experiences it along with him as he, and they, settle into life along the trail, taking in generous descriptions of the terrain and regional history, as well as rambling yet pertinent stories about life, preparedness, and self-reliance. This is a short read with lots of depth, clever line drawings, and a truly stunning number of life lessons. Pablo, along with the reader, finds his way over the course of the summer, and how to go through life “slow, easy, and lead with a smile.”