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Show 494. an extension of the s t r a t e g y Muir used on Robert Underwood Johnson. It is s t i l l being used; the f i r s t Sierra Club Outing in 1901 was planned and c a r r i e d out in a style which was unchanged in the Base Camps of the nineteen s i x t i e s . Further, the traditional Sierra Club Outing s t y l e has had a major influence on the s t y l e of r e c r e a t i o n and ecological education which Mather brought to the National Parks, and which continues to this day. When William Colby announced the f i r s t proposed Summer Outing in 1901, to Tuolumne Meadows, he pointed out that it would be a tool for the Sierra Club: An excursion of t h i s s o r t , if properly conducted will do an i n f i n i t e amount of good toward awakening the proper kind of i n t e r e s t in the forests and other natural features of our mountains, and will also tend to create a s p i r i t of good fellowship among our members. Thus Colby recognized the importance of the outing, "properly conducted," as a kind of environmental education and the basis for forming a communal r e l a t i o n s h i p between p a r t i c i p a n t s. With that in mind, he also r e a l i z e d that the outing would have to be a kind of compromise which would allow the greatest range of members to p a r t i c i p a t e: The f i r s t t r i p should combine comparative ease and comfort with the opportunity to see some of the grandest scenery of the S i e r r a , not too commonly v i s i t e d as to lack d i s t i n c t i o n. |