backpacking in the Sierra Nevada has been an immersion in a particular wilderness. It’s been a deep joy, impossible to express in full, but nevertheless real. I can bear witness to the experience of wilderness as a space of human joy. We were gamboling up there like kids in a meadow. Yes—seeing those young bighorn sheep fooling around that day in 2008 gave me the clearest image I’ve ever had of the feeling of being up there. I recognized what they were doing, and that made me laugh. Run in circles, pop suddenly into the air, collapse in a tangle—get up and do it again! It’s not virtuous; it’s
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