Managers Viewpoints 10 August 06

Solitude and beauty

The wilderness of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks is a high, wild, rugged and beautiful place where I genuinely connect with this earth. The contrast of rocks, water, sky, plants and wildlife presents a new discovery and adventure at every turn. It is a place where solitude allows me to easily slip back in time and visualize glaciers and other natural elements shaping the landscape. Though it is a land of bold vistas and features such as the dominant rock walls and peaks, it also has soft, subtle elements, such as ferns in crevices and tiny alpine wildflowers. I have experienced many spectacular wild places, but when I really need a good dose of solitude and beauty to calm the storms of the modern world, this is where I return.

Gregg Fauth, Wilderness Manager

Beauty, serenity and renewal

My passion in working in the Ansel Adams Wilderness comes from the beauty I find in nature’s designs and wild-ness. I’ve found that beauty all across our little planet, and I think we humans are touched by beauty, as we are by love. It makes us yearn for it, seek it out. Wilderness is one of those places where we can find it. Look at the photographs of nature we value. Look at how much we appreciate being outdoors. Look at the concern for the environment that all world citizens express. They know its one environment, one people, one planet, and a small planet at that. To avoid the collapse of cultures, we must use the environment wisely, and preserving wilderness is one of the ways we do that.

So, the people that come here to be physically challenged by the ruggedness of the Ansel Adams Wilderness, to reconnect again with the core of nature, are also here to find beauty, serenity, and renewal. I work here to help provide that to them.

Michael Olwyler, Wilderness Manager

Wild, remote, spiritual and spectacular

It is a great and humbling honor to manage, for the American people, a piece of the iconic John Muir Wilderness. The John Muir Wilderness on the Sierra National Forest covers terrain from dramatic peaks to sublime meadows, from accessible waterfalls to remote alpine lakes, from granitic moonscapes to lush forests. This is a wonderful, expansive place that is not only a refuge for us as visitors from the hustle and bustle of everyday life, but is a refuge and core habitat for wildlife, a refuge and filtration system for clean air, a refuge for clean and free-flowing water, and a refuge for vegetation to follow its natural succession. It is a place that is wild, remote, spiritual and spectacular. It the responsibility of our wilderness staff on the Sierra National Forest, as well as visitors to the area, to protect and preserve the wilderness character of this special piece of our nation, and to allow that wildness to flourish in perpetuity. For all of us who love wildness and wild places, let us continue to carry the torch of the great wilderness advocates that have come before us so that wild lands such as the John Muir Wilderness will continue to inspire our soul, feed our wonder, and preserve our national heritage.

Rob Mason , Wilderness Manager

Previously: YOSAR, Yosemite’s Search and Rescue Team, by Lincoln Else
Next: