THE HIGH SIERRA

A celebration of California’s formidable mountain range.

Award-winning science-fiction writer Robinson, one of Time magazine’s “Heroes of the Environment” in 2008, writes of his love affair with the Sierras, which began in the summer of 1973. A rising senior at the University of California, San Diego, he made his first treks through the mountains in the company of friends, “long-haired stoner hippie college students” who invigorated the trip with LSD. Although his early hikes were challenging because of heavy boots, snowshoes without poles, and inadequate sleeping bags, his enthusiasm never waned. Interweaving meandering memoir, practical travel guide, geological survey, and natural history, Robinson pays homage to the range’s magnificence. Carved out by glaciers, the Sierras, he notes, are different from the Swiss Alps, where the author also has done a fair amount of climbing—even ascending the Matterhorn, tethered to a German-speaking guide. It’s a feat he never would do again: “It’s dangerous,” he writes. “You could get killed.” Backpacking in the Sierras, on the other hand, “is a safe and peaceful thing to do” even when not following marked trails. Besides describing geological formations, such as basins, which he cites as “its distinguishing feature” that make it a “golden zone” for hikers, Robinson offers a chronicle of a typical day, from “rambling and scrambling” in the morning to watching the luscious pink of alpenglow in the evening. Scrambling, he writes, is “problem-solving, keeping your balance, not falling down, and heading somewhere.” Some chapters offer capsule biographies of people who have championed the Sierras, including John Muir, Clarence King, Mary Austin, Norman Clyde, and Gary Snyder. In others, Robinson describes the fauna, such as marmots, deer, bears, and pikas. Plopped in the middle is an annotated bibliography of guides, histories, memoirs, and a sampling of Robinson’s own novels that feature the Sierras. There are also numerous photos from the author’s collection.

A colorful, digressive journey into incomparable terrain.