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Show 304. Shadow Lake, now called Washburn Lake, had been his own special "High Altar." He secluded himself in its basin many times, and wandered into the Clark Range from there, notably when he made his first excursion into the glacial womb. This was probably the place where he dedicated himself to "baptize all of mine in the beauty of God's mountains." When he returned from meditations one day late in the fall of 1874, he wrote to Jeanne Carr, "I care to live only to entice people to look at Nature's loveliness. My own special self is nothing." For years he had reserved Shadow Lake as his own retreat, keeping it a secret, an "unlooked for treasure that is bound up and hidden away in the depths of the alpine solitudes of the Sierra." He had hoarded its beauty as Indians before him had saved its sacred hunting grounds for times of hunger. They knew that "hunting in this lake-hollow is like hunting in a fenced park," and respected its special status. Muir had assumed that he could protect this sacred place by keeping his silence. He had "told the beauty of Shadow Lake only to a few friends, fearing it might come to be trampled and improved like Yosemite." But on one visit, he discovered new tracks and after an excursion to the higher mountains he returned to his worst fears: " . . . all the gardens and meadow were destroyed by a horde of hoofed locusts, as if swept by a fire. The money-changers were in the temple." He had been afraid of the tourist's trail, and by his silence had allowed the stampede of sheep. So he learned that it would not be possible to hide or escape into the wilderness |