“Congress is always willing to appropriate money for more and bigger paved roads, anywhere -- particularly if they form loops.”
― Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness
― Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness
“Industrial tourism is a threat to the national parks. But the chief victims of the system are the motorized tourists. They are being robbed and robbing themselves. So long as they are unwilling to crawl out of their cars they will not discover the treasures of the national parks and will never escape the stress and turmoil of the urban-suburban complexes which they had hoped, presumably, to leave behind for a while.”
― Desert Solitaire
― Desert Solitaire
“The automobile, which began as a transportation convenience, has become a bloody tyrant (50,000 lives a year), and it is the responsibility of the park service, as well as that of everyone else concerned with preserving both wilderness and civilization, to begin a campaign of resistance.”
― Desert Solitaire
― Desert Solitaire
“Wilderness and motors are incompatible and the former can best be experienced, understood and enjoyed when the machines are left behind where they belong -- on the superhighways and in the parking lots, on the reservoirs and in the marinas.”
― Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness
― Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness
“There's another disadvantage to the use of the flashlight: like many other mechanical gadgets it tends to separate a man from the world around him. If I switch it on my eyes adapt to it and I can see only the small pool of light it makes in front of me; I am isolated. Leaving the flashlight in my pocket where it belongs, I remain a part of the environment I walk through and my vision though limited has no sharp or definite boundary.”
― Desert Solitaire
― Desert Solitaire
Michael’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Michael’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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