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In a book club I participate in, we read a book called the Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey.   Oddly enough we read this book just after reading Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.  What can I say, we like diversity of thought.  Abbey’s book prompted us to now read Timothy Egan’s book The Big Burn which I have already read.  So here is my project.  

I am going to explore the formation of a few key areas within the US National Forest System that have been designated as Wilderness area.   For an area to be designated as a Wilderness Area, it literally requires and act of congress.  So there are many people involved and quite a discussion / debate / fight in making these parts of the forest into “Wilderness” areas.  My goal this summer is to learn more about these efforts and blog about it along the way.  My other goal is to get out and actually hike in some of the local wilderness areas as well (of course, that is no different from any other summer).   If anyone has suggested reading on these subjects, I would love to hear more.

Thoreau wrote – “in Wildness is the preservation of the world.”  So that prompts my first area of research – what is Wildness and perhaps more direct to this project what is Wilderness?  The journey begins and perhaps I may take the road less traveled, but it should be fun all the same.

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