OCR Text |
Show 493. for what he assumed was an ignorant and physically handicapped American public. THE SIERRA CLUB OUTING The idea that a National Park would become a place designed as a facility to encourage the experiences of novices in the wilderness, this idea was complemented by the Sierra Club's own Outings Program. Mather's most famous mountain trip took place in 1915, where he wined and dined influential politicians in the Sequoia, Kings River, and Mount Whitney country: perhaps this trip can be seen as a parody of a Sierra Club Outing. But it was based on the Sierra Club Outing, in style and in strategy. Like the Club, Mather was taking influential people into the wilderness, people who could simply not get there by themselves, who could never go it alone. This kind of "open admission" wilderness outing was certainly a fixture in the Club's program even in the middle nineteen sixties when I went to work for the Club, organizing and leading Sierra Club Base Camps in the mountains of California, Colorado, Idaho, and Wyoming. The Sierra Club Outings were a far more essential part of the Club's program than one might at first glance suspect. And Muir was far more likely to be an active part of a Sierra Club Summer Outing, than even present at a meeting in San Francisco. William. Colby gave Muir credit for enthusiastic support of the program. Certainly these outings represented |