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Show 73, one. The sculpture of the inner gorge and surrounding domes is particularly dramatic and very steep. As with any fine mountain ramble, the beauty of the landscape is inseparable from its technical difficulties. So near and yet so far from the crowded Valley, it is another world. I have scrambled on its walls, bathed in its waterfalls, climbed on its cliffs, walked through forest to its abrupt edges, and even once floated shamelessly through its depths in a helicopter. But it has always been most real when I walked it alone. How many times have I gone there on a crowded summer afternoon, crossing Snow Creek, passing under the great northwest face of Half Dome, and finding myself alone in the world of rock and water. May such places always be feared by those who do not belong in them, and may such deep shadows and smooth granite walls continue to lure those who are ready for the more austere lessons of the wilderness. Hidden in those massive planes of polished rock are gardens filled with singing ouzels. Though one might be the only human travelling in the depths, one is never alone. Muir followed this path because it was the most direct route from the Valley to the winter of the backcountry. It was February, and it must have been what we call a drought year. Muir's desire to follow this glacial pathway indicated his own changing perspective. Where he had earlier wished to brood upon the rocks and wear grey, now he wished to move, and in so doing he was running toward his final transformation, |