nuers—pursued them relentlessly. Unlike medieval forest rebels (in legend,
anyway), American moonshiners and cannabis growers were often appre-
hended and sent to prison.^15 There they are likely to languish forever, await-
ing a just and merciful king who will return them to the forest.
tGovernment-controlled forests and parks have been, since their cre-
ations, scenes of loss and contention as well. Many people—the natives
and then European and African Americans—once lived on the landscapes,
after all, and for many centuries. Now human habitation is forbidden. We
may visit, hike, work, drive through, but always leave. Most of the forests
and nearly all the national parks happen to be in mountains, for reasons
arbitrary, maybe peculiar, yet (I think) very revealing of human imagina-
tive traditions. For decades before the National Park Service was created
(in ), while a doctrine of protection evolved into something approach-
ing consensus, government officials and private advocates of wilderness
preservation wrangled over the criteria for nationalization of various land-
scapes. Yellowstone (mostly in Wyoming) was the first national park and
ultimately the model for qualification: spectacular peaks, rock formations,
broad valleys, and a spouting spring. Yosemite (in California’s Sierras) fol-
lowed: more soaring mountains and gorgeous river valleys. Among others
there was Sully’s Hill in North Dakota. The Hill, it was later decided, was
insufficiently transporting, aesthetically and spiritually, so it was demoted
from park status. Meanwhile, as the Park Service assumed administra-
tion of the growing system, the automobile was already prominent in cal-
culations of park visitorship and required amenities. The service and its
outdoorsy lobbies decided also that mountains would ever be their most
popular venues.^16 And so it has been, despite mountains’ forbidding and
uneconomic challenges to road building and construction.
Yet the greater the challenge—the most inaccessible pinnacles and the
most unstable valley floors—the greater the reward in inspiration. Moun-
tains are spiritual metaphors, first of all. From mountaintops one gains
vision, literally and figuratively. Thomas Jefferson would doubtlessly have
been a sage if he had lived in a swamp outside Williamsburg, but no, he was
the Sage of Monticello, wealthy enough (or in possession of a good enough
line of credit) to afford the carting of all his building materials, books,
and cases of wine up the hill. (Poor animals—and slaves!) Moses received
Jehovah’s law atop rocky Mount Sinai; Noah’s ark returned to earth upon
Ararat, and Jesus’ most famous sermon was delivered on ‘‘The Mount,’’
an elevation worthy of the timeless message. No wonder that John Muir’s