As the twentieth century drew to a close, after 150 years of increasingly intense European occupation of the Great Central Valley of California, Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks lay cut off and isolated from the seamless natural world that had surrounded them only a few generations earlier.

Where once had lapped the waters of the great Tulare Lake, with its expansive, reed-covered marshlands and countless waterfowl, there now stretched only giant, straight-plowed fields of cotton. Here and there a few of the ancient blue-green tules lingered in the irrigation canals, the last reminder of an obliterated natural world. On the east side of the now-dry lake basin, straightened canals flowed in place of the meandering, tree-lined sloughs that once brought mountain water to the lake. In most years little water now reached the lake basin, for farmers diverted nearly all of it to feed their hundreds of thousands of acres of irrigated fields, orchards, and pastures.

Through the croplands that stretched towards the Sierra from the eastern shore of the old lake, and along the channelized river beds, could be found occasional ancient oaks—huge lonely trees six feet in diameter, often towering more than a hundred feet above the surrounding walnuts or summer corn. Here and there a small remnant of forest survived, perpetuated as a county park with green lawn or a setting for an old farm house. But the isolated remnants gave little life to the stories of endless summer shade and wild grapevines. Gone, too, were the herds of tule elk and pronghorn, their ghosts living on in the valley with the ghosts of the Native Americans who had once hunted them. In their place were people and cities.

From the fields and cities that had replaced the oak forest, something else was missing—the view of the mountains that had so dominated the forest clearings in earlier times. To the east, where once the miles-high wall of the Sierra had risen so distinctly, now could be seen only a flat, hazy horizon, and perhaps a few brown foothills. The mountains remained, of course, but the summer smog generated by the several million human residents of the valley often obscured the range from view. Sometimes people now came to live where the oak forest had once prospered and resided there for months before they realized that the mountains even existed. After winter storms, however, the air often briefly regained its old clarity, and then the grand Sierra again dominated the landscape.

On those occasional winter days when rains washed the air of all its modern contents, it was possible still to study from afar the shape and condition of the range. Three zones of color still appeared, as they had in centuries past. In the lowest mountains a confused color scheme of oak and grass persevered. In summer the foothill grass now browned sooner, for the native perennials, which remained green through much of the summer, had long since given way to short-lived Eurasian annuals, which died and paled each year by early May. Scattered through the spare oak forest could be seen the countless barns, ranch houses, and suburban homes the people had built.

Above the foothills, a darker blue-green forest still clothed the slopes. Here, for the first time, it appeared that nothing had changed from the old times. Endlessly the forest stretched north and south, blanketing each ridge. And from the forest, in sheltered locations, ruddy-trunked giants still protruded rudely, reducing all their neighbors to insignificance. Crowning the range, as in times past, could still be seen the barren, shining granite summits, still spare, still angular. Only in the mountainside forests and on the granite summits did life continue almost as it had in times past. On the mountains, bear and deer still roamed, coyotes still hunted at night, and ancient trees lived out their lives without disturbance.

The natural world of the mountains had survived as long as it had because the people of the cities protected, even treasured it. But now, their daily activities threatened even the mountain forests a mile above their valley homes. Ultimately the people of the valley ruled the entire landscape, and all its inhabitants lived in their shadow.