How Teddy Roosevelt & John Muir’s Camping Trip Helped Save Yosemite

Welcome to Touching Grass! This week, we’re looking at how wonder sparks connection—whether it’s two dudes under the canopy of Yosemite’s conifers or Walt Disney bringing his obsession with trains to life.

But before we get there: I’ve compiled my favorite 10 books about digital detoxing. They’ll help you scroll less and live more IRL—written by the people who built the tech that hooks us, or who study why we can’t put our phones down. Click here to get it.

Now on with the show…

Trail Markers

• Engineered Wonder → Cal Newport coined a great new term while reflecting on Walt Disney’s obsession with trains and how to bring more designed delight into everyday life.

• Connection in the age of AI → Psychologist Paul Bloom joined Sam Harris to discuss what artificial intelligence might do to human relationships.

• Grandma camp → In suburban LA, a group of grandmothers started an intergenerational summer camp to pass down lost skills like cooking and embroidery.

• Local antidote to isolation → A couple in Oakland opened Local Economy, a community hub built to counter our post-COVID world of “isolation and chaos.”

• The price of community → Psychologist Francesca writes, “Being annoyed is the price we pay for connection and community.” This is worth remembering next time your neighbor’s peccadillos get on your nerves.

In 1903, President Teddy Roosevelt was touring the West, giving speeches to adoring crowds.

On his itinerary was an adventure at Yosemite with John Muir, the founder of the Sierra Club and America’s foremost conservationist. But inside Yosemite, he slipped away from the official schedule. He didn’t want more handshakes—he wanted to finally size up Muir.

For three nights, they hiked, ate, and argued about nature. Muir admitted to Roosevelt over a campfire that his actual motivation for the visit was to persuade Roosevelt to save Mt. Shasta and expand Yosemite National Park to include Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove to save it from encroaching timber interests.

Lucky for Muir, Roosevelt was already awestruck by Yosemite. Looking up at the granite cliffs and cathedral of conifers, Roosevelt called the park, “A temple built by no hand of man, a temple grander than any human architect could by any possibility build.”

At Glacier Point, the two men paused for a photo at an overhang above the valley below, resulting in one of the most iconic images taken in Yosemite.

After Roosevelt departed, he immediately sent a wire to Washington requesting an expansion of the forest reserves to include the California forest throughout the Mt. Shasta region and its extensions. Roosevelt, during his term, would establish 5 national parks, 18 national monuments, 55 national bird sanctuaries and wildlife refuges, and 150 national forests.

Roosevelt created a national monument of the hard-to-access redwood trees that had avoided the loggers saw north of San Francisco. They were named Muir Woods for his friend John, who had dedicated his life to conservation.

Roosevelt and Muir did not spend much time together in person, but they shared their love of America’s natural wonders through letters and telegrams. One camping trip. Thousands of acres preserved. All sparked by shared wonder.

You don’t have to be the president of the Sierra Club or the United States to have the temerity to share one's interests with a stranger or acquaintance. Showing a little vulnerability opens up others to sharing their interests with you, which creates the opportunity to act and build on it together.