A Famous Camping Trip
Learn about John Muir and President Theodore Roosevelt's famous camping trip that initiated America's best idea, the birth of our National Parks.

At their meeting, Muir spoke of environmental degradation, like development, and asked for another layer of protection as a national park to improve management. Muir convinced both Roosevelt and California Governor George Pardee, on that excursion, to recede the state grant and make the Valley and the Mariposa Grove part of Yosemite National Park. This joining together of the 1864 state grant lands with the 1890 national park lands occurred during Roosevelt's presidency in 1906.