Welcome to the Journal of Sierra Nevada History & Biography

David Kuchera and Jay Hester, Editors

Voices of The Illuminated Landscape

Before I with relish detail the particulars of this exceptional edition of Snowy Range Reflections: A Journal of the History and Biography of the Sierra Nevada, please pardon a few personal reflections. For more than a decade my brother Gary and I spent our summers hiking the high pavilions of the “Range of Light.” We documented our sojourns into the pristine realms beyond the world of men. What emerged is a series of volumes we lovingly refer to as the “bear box journals.”

An evening ago when I sat down to write this introduction I cracked open a volume that recounted a tramp we made out of Kings Canyon along the Bubb's Creek Trail. I found a line I’d written at trail’s end I’d like to share:

“… the silver, green, gold of the river runs by, and bye and bye I long to return. Yet I wonder if, and if so, how much of our spirits remain behind in the water, earth and trees, the meadow flowers and animals and in that eternal something that shines beneath it all?”

For me that eternal something that is the Range of Light has been beautifully reflected in a pool of many voices in The Illuminated Landscape: A Sierra Nevada Anthology.

Edited by Gary Noy and Rick Heide and published jointly by Sierra College Press, Heyday Books and Santa Clara University, The Illuminated Landscape hit bookstore shelves from actual to virtual to rave reviews. The book contains a dazzling collection of writings that mirror authors and voices familiar and unique yet always illuminating about the Range of Light.

Let it also be proudly noted that Sierra College Press and Heyday Books have entered into a partnership that will in the coming years produce many more original works devoted to the Sierra Nevada and the surrounding region.

In this edition of “Snowy Range Reflections” we have chosen for your reading and listening pleasure a small sampling of the prose and poetry to be found and enjoyed in The Illuminated Landscape. Included among the selections are writings by such luminaries as Henry David Thoreau, Jack Kerouac, Dame Shirley, Gary Snyder, Mark Twain, the Yokuts of the Sierra Nevada and more.

The selections are read by:

• Daniel DeFoe, Professor of History, Sierra College
• Robert Hanna, great-great grandson of John Muir
• Rick Heide, author /editor of Under the Fifth Sun and The Illuminated Landscape
• Joe Medeiros, Professor of Biological Sciences Emeritus, Sierra College
• Gary Noy, Director, Sierra College Center of Sierra Nevada Studies and co-editor of The Illuminated Landscape
• Barbara Vineyard, former President of the Sierra College Board of Trustees
  

Finally, this season I intend to give my favorite hiking partner and brother a gift I know he’ll always treasure: The Illuminated Landscape.