ArticlesJohn Muir Trail

The Hidden History of the Wilderness Act

Jul 17, 2025

Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail represents a turning point in Ansel’s career—not just as an artist, but as a conservationist. Though only 500 copies were produced, the book—with its stunning and beautifully rendered photographs of the John Muir Trail—was hugely influential in the fight to preserve large portions of the High Sierra. Copies sent to Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes eventually ended up in the hands of President Roosevelt, and led to the creation of Kings Canyon National Park.

For the Sierra Club, the book’s outsized influence was a revelation. The political impact of Sierra Nevada proved that of all the tools at the Club’s disposal—lobbying, letters to Congress—the most emotionally arresting argument for conservation was an artistic one. From that moment on, Ansel was no longer just a documentarian of the Sierra Nevada, but an ambassador for it. It was an ethic that Ansel would carry with him into the 1960s, when another key piece of conservationist legislation was on the table: The Wilderness Act of 1964.

The Wilderness Act was first drafted in 1956 by Howard Zahniser, Executive Director of the Wilderness Society, of which Ansel was a member. It was designed to provide a framework for protecting a far greater percentage of America’s wild spaces than ever before—not just those areas deemed worthy of National Park status, but miles and miles of unspoiled wilderness. For Ansel, who had spent his entire career capturing the splendor of these spaces, the Act was an important step in protecting them.

Muir Pass, The Black Giant

Muir Pass, The Black Giant by Ansel Adams
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Writing in a Sierra Club Bulletin, Adams acknowledged that the National Parks—excellent though they are—had their limitations. “I am an artist who also appreciate[s] science and engineering,” he wrote, “and I know we can’t keep everything in a glass case—with the keys given only to a privileged few. Nevertheless, I want people to experience the magic of wildness; there is no use fooling ourselves that nature with a slick highway running through it is any longer wild…” The Wilderness Act would preserve America’s natural heritage not as a museum piece, but as actual wilderness—like the wilderness that John Muir had explored and in which Ansel had found his muse.

In support of the Wilderness Act, the Sierra Club turned to the same technique that had worked in the 1930s: a gorgeous book of Ansel Adams’ photography. Ansel collaborated with Nancy Newhall, a celebrated photography critic, to produce This Is The American Earth in 1960. The book was a direct descendant of Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail—gorgeous photographs impeccably rendered. It contained 44 of Ansel’s photographs—accompanied by Newhall’s soaring prose—along with 41 photographs by other artists. In the fight to protect America’s wilderness, This Is The American Earth soon became one of the Sierra Club’s most important documents.

Manzanita Twigs by Ansel Adams

Manzanita Twigs by Ansel Adams
page from Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail

Grass and Burned Stump, Original Photograph by Ansel Adams

Grass and Burned Stump by Ansel Adams
page from Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail

Cascade Palisade Cr Canyon by Ansel Adams

Cascade, Palisade Creek Canyon by Ansel Adams
page from Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail

The Wilderness Act was passed in 1964, just a few months after the Civil Rights Act. The act provided for the protection of 9.1 million acres of American land, and created a mechanism for ordinary citizens to nominate new places for protected status. Among the first wilderness areas established in 1964 was the Minarets Wilderness, a jagged ridge of peaks high in the Sierra Nevada—right along the John Muir Trail.

Today, if you look on a map, you won’t see the Minarets Wilderness. Because today, the area of preserved land that sits between Yosemite National Park to the north and the John Muir Wilderness to its south is known by a different name: the Ansel Adams Wilderness.

Mt. Ansel Adams, Lyell Fork by Ansel Adams
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Last Updated on July 17, 2025