The coverage of the Search and Rescue is gripping. The commentary on the National Park Service not honoring their summer work force and being slow to implement a more modern communication system is sad but true. The book dwells a bit long in these areas and you would not miss too much by ripping a big chunk out of the middle. Although I have not hiked the JMT I have spent weeks climbing in the back country at both ends of the trail, and this book transported me back to that wild beauty, the Range of Light.As good as he was in the natural environment, Randy was bereft of social skills as a friend or a husband. Few books do such a good job at evoking such a strong sense of place. His unique childhood of growing up in Yosemite Valley with a naturalist for a father prepared him well for this life in the back country. 28 seasons (yes, that is twenty-eight) in the wild country of the John Muir Trail, if that is not love then I do not know what is.Randy Morgenson was a modern-day John Muir, a prophet for treading lightly in the wilderness. As an aside it is also about the story of one ranger, no scratch that, one Back Country Ranger. It is about a love affair with the Sierras.
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