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Show 553, Glenora Peak. In both c a s e s , Muir warned h i s companions, but they decided to c o n t i n u e a g a i n s t h i s advice. Hall Young was seriously i n j u r e d : he d i s l o c a t e d both shoulders on his excursion. Was Muir r e s p o n s i b l e ? Certainly not in the most literal sense. But t h e n he always taught by example, and he knew that many followed h i s ways i n t o the wilderness alone, perhaps to t h e i r d e a t h s . Just as animals followed sometimes blindly, so did men. So he f e l t r e s p o n s i b l e , and was i n c r e a s i n g ly reticent to recommend dangerous e x c u r s i o n s , in the n i n e t i es and l a t e r . More than t h a t , he feared t h a t those who read his essays and books would misunderstand him, and follow the path of adventure for i t s own sake, not for i t s s p i r i t u al goal. In Story of My Boyhood and Youth, he wondered about the path which led him t o w i l d n e s s . In Stickeen he reconsidered the cost of the l e s s o n s of the w i l d e r n e s s . In My F i r s t Summer in the S i e r r a he r e a p p r a i s e d t h a t c r i t i c a l time in h i s l i fe when he gave himself f u l l y to Nature, no matter what the c o s t. FIRST SUMMER My F i r s t Summer i n the S i e r r a i s a d e c e p t i v e l y s t r a i g h t forward n a r r a t i v e . When i t t e l l s the s t o r y of Muir's baptism in the mountains, of h i s f i n d i n g a t r u e home, most readers assume t h a t Muir simply t r a n s c r i b e d f o r t y year old j o u r n a l s, turning them i n t o a n a t u r a l l y coherent whole. That i s hardly |