High Trips

The High Trips were large wilderness excursions organized and led by the Sierra Club, beginning in 1901.

Sierra Club secretary William Colby initiated the High Trips, which usually traveled to the High Sierra, and led them from 1901 to 1929. Colby wrote, "It was from John Muir, President of the Club, that I received the warmest encouragement. He was highly enthusiastic, and told me that he had long been trying to get the Club to undertake just such outings." Edward T. Parsons, a former member of The Mazamas, an Oregon mountaineering club, was also involved with the early logistics, as that club had conducted similar trips. Early outings lasted four full weeks, but eventually the trips were separated into two segments of two weeks each so that those with less time to spare could participate.

Francis Farquhar wrote that the purpose of the High Trips was far more than to provide an enjoyable vacation to the participants, but also to "lead them to know and appreciate the beauty and inspiration of the mountains, and to educate them to become defenders of the wilderness."

The first High Trip in July, 1901 attracted 96 club members to Yosemite National Park. On the eve of the start of the trip, club co-founder and University of California, Berkeley geology professor Joseph LeConte died of a sudden heart attack in Yosemite Valley at age 78. Other than this sad event, the trip was a success, and the Sierra Club then began a successful fundraising drive to build LeConte Memorial Lodge in Yosemite Valley in his honor. The High Trip the next and subsequent years doubled in size.

The high trips were complex affairs, with gear for approximately 200 participants packed in by mules, with a staff of up to 50 and elaborate food prepared by professional cooks. It served to establish rituals and folklore that bound the members of the club together. Participants wore bandannas around their necks, used the distinctive metal Sierra Club cup, and sang the same campfire songs year after year. When the Sierra Club was lobbying for the establishment of Kings Canyon National Park, the High Trips visited that area many times, so that more effective lobbyists for the park could become familiar with its remote beauty.

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