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‘’Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter’’
John Muir
‘’The last Season’’, is at its core, a book about celebration of nature and the national parks. It centers around Randy Morgenson, a National Park Service ranger in The Sequoia King Canyon National Parks. Randy is a conservationist and a mystic in the mold of Muir and Thoreau, a passion he inherited from his father. ‘’Protect the people from the park and the park from the people’’ was his mantra. Even more than that he is, a poet, a photography enthusiast, and an amateur botanist. His mastery of the Sierra Nevada always left anybody who met him in awe. When he went missing in July, 1996 few days after reporting for his 28th season at the parks, a complicated rescue operation ensues to find him in the vast mountainous wilderness of the Sierra.
I think this book excels at relating the reverence for nature that Randy often shows, along with the universal sense of oneness we are ominously losing with the environment. A log book entry from Randy on September 12, 1978 cited in the book is a perfect example:
‘’ Love for the world and its creatures comes easily here [in the mountains]. I have loved a thousand mountain meadows and alpine peaks. To be aware each day that I am alive, to be deeply sensitive to the world I inhibit and the world that I am, not to roam roughshod over the broad surface of this planet for achievement but to know where I step, and to tread lightly.’’
One look at the Instagram page of The Sequoia King canyon national parks, gives us a glimpse of the beauty that he was so infectiously infatuated with. In the Author’s Note section of the book a further visual resource is provided at www.robiningraham.com ,where the magnificence of the parks is there for everyone to see. But it is only a glimpse. Nothing probably comes as close to actually being there. Blehm does a great work in this book of highlighting the vastness and the absolute wilderness of the terrain having himself hiked through it since 1992.
The rescue operation that the team goes through to locate Randy, was so well laid out and thrilling. Sure, there were some side stories that were a bit underdeveloped in my opinion. Overall though, the book has accomplished what it set out to do. There is enough mystery and intrigue to make the reader care. Although, I suspect between trying to be a page turner and a book about nature, the author might have stretched himself a bit too thin. When I read a non-fiction book, the level of research that goes into the book is the primary criteria. It is clear that the research work done for the book was thorough and sensitive towards the people involved. On the other hand, I feel the book has some fillers at times here and there and it could have been a bit shorter and concise.
John Muir
‘’The last Season’’, is at its core, a book about celebration of nature and the national parks. It centers around Randy Morgenson, a National Park Service ranger in The Sequoia King Canyon National Parks. Randy is a conservationist and a mystic in the mold of Muir and Thoreau, a passion he inherited from his father. ‘’Protect the people from the park and the park from the people’’ was his mantra. Even more than that he is, a poet, a photography enthusiast, and an amateur botanist. His mastery of the Sierra Nevada always left anybody who met him in awe. When he went missing in July, 1996 few days after reporting for his 28th season at the parks, a complicated rescue operation ensues to find him in the vast mountainous wilderness of the Sierra.
I think this book excels at relating the reverence for nature that Randy often shows, along with the universal sense of oneness we are ominously losing with the environment. A log book entry from Randy on September 12, 1978 cited in the book is a perfect example:
‘’ Love for the world and its creatures comes easily here [in the mountains]. I have loved a thousand mountain meadows and alpine peaks. To be aware each day that I am alive, to be deeply sensitive to the world I inhibit and the world that I am, not to roam roughshod over the broad surface of this planet for achievement but to know where I step, and to tread lightly.’’
One look at the Instagram page of The Sequoia King canyon national parks, gives us a glimpse of the beauty that he was so infectiously infatuated with. In the Author’s Note section of the book a further visual resource is provided at www.robiningraham.com ,where the magnificence of the parks is there for everyone to see. But it is only a glimpse. Nothing probably comes as close to actually being there. Blehm does a great work in this book of highlighting the vastness and the absolute wilderness of the terrain having himself hiked through it since 1992.
The rescue operation that the team goes through to locate Randy, was so well laid out and thrilling. Sure, there were some side stories that were a bit underdeveloped in my opinion. Overall though, the book has accomplished what it set out to do. There is enough mystery and intrigue to make the reader care. Although, I suspect between trying to be a page turner and a book about nature, the author might have stretched himself a bit too thin. When I read a non-fiction book, the level of research that goes into the book is the primary criteria. It is clear that the research work done for the book was thorough and sensitive towards the people involved. On the other hand, I feel the book has some fillers at times here and there and it could have been a bit shorter and concise.
