Throughout his life, John Muir was concerned with the protection of nature both for the spiritual advancement of humans and, as he said so often, for Nature itself. This dual vision still informs the ecology movement and inspires millions to reform their thought and minds, to orient themselves as part of nature.
His direct activism helped to save the Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park and other wilderness areas. The Sierra Club, which he founded, is now one of the most important conservation organizations in the United States. His writings and philosophy strongly influenced the formation of the modern environmental movement.
Muir threw himself into the preservationist role with great vigor. He envisioned the Yosemite area and the Sierra as pristine lands.[3] He saw the greatest threat to the Yosemite area and the Sierra to be livestock, especially domestic sheep, calling them "hoofed locusts".
In 1903 President Theodore Roosevelt accompanied Muir on a visit to Yosemite. Muir joined Roosevelt in Oakland, California for the train trip to Raymond. The presidential entourage then traveled by stagecoach into the park. While traveling to the park, Muir told the president about state mismanagement of the valley and rampant exploitation of the valley's resources. Even before they entered the park, he was able to convince Roosevelt that the best way to protect the valley was through federal control and management.
After entering the park and seeing the magnificent splendor of the valley, the president asked Muir to show him the real Yosemite. Muir and Roosevelt set off largely by themselves and camped in the backcountry. While circling around a fire, the duo talked late into the night, slept in the brisk open air of Glacier Point and were dusted by a fresh snowfall in the morning—a night Roosevelt never would forget.
Muir then increased efforts by the Sierra Club to consolidate park management and was rewarded in 1905 when Congress transferred the Mariposa Grove and Yosemite Valley into the park.
John Muir died at a hospital in Los Angeles on December 24, 1914 of pneumonia[4] after a brief visit to his daughter Helen.
Three John Muir Trails (in California, Tennessee, and Wisconsin), the John Muir Wilderness, Mount Muir just off the John Muir Trail, the Muir Woods National Monument, John Muir High School, John Muir Elementary School John Muir College (a residential college of the University of California, San Diego), John Muir Country Park, in Dunbar and the John Muir Way in East Lothian are named in his honor, as is the asteroid 128523 John muir. An image of John Muir, with the California Condor and Half Dome, appears on the California state quarter which was released in 2005. A quotation of his appears on the reverse side of the Indianapolis Prize Lilly Medal for conservation. Also named for him is Muir's Peak in Mount Shasta, California (also known as Black Butte), and Muir Woods just north of San Francisco
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