John Muir wrote many wonderful books about his travels, but one story-about his long walk from San Francisco to Yosemite-is one book he did not author himself. In April 1868, a very young John Muir stepped off a boat in San Francisco and inquired about the quickest way out of town. "But where do you want to go?" was the response, to which Muir replied, "Anywhere that is wild." Using Muir's personal correspondence and published articles, Peter and Donna Thomas have reconstructed the real story of Muir's literal ramblings over California hills and through dales, with lofty Sierra Nevada peaks, Englishmen, and bears mixed in for good measure. The trip is illustrated by charming cut-paper illustrations that take their inspiration from Muir's love of nature. John Muir's story-telling is so compelling that even 150 years later, seeing the world through his eyes makes us want to head out into the wild.

This book is really three books in one. It is a guidebook for a walking/cycling route across California that follows John Muir's footsteps from San Francisco to Yosemite via the Pacheco Pass. It is an adventure book, telling the story of Peter and Donna Thomas' 2006 ramble across California to discover that route. And finally it is a history book, presenting in its entirety and for the first time, the complete story of John Muir's first trip to Yosemite. That trip was taken in 1868, the year before Muir's "First Summer in the Sierra," and it has never been published before, existing in obscurity, in Muir's various writings, until it was reconstructed by Peter and Donna in preparation for their walk to Yosemite in his footsteps.