Bully for Teddy and John

Here’s a tougher challenge than scaling Half Dome: Ring up the president of the United States and invite him to go camping in Yosemite -- with the sole intent of pestering him to protect the wilderness. That’s pretty much what John Muir did in 1903, when he and Teddy Roosevelt took off on mules with only a packer and a cook on a four-day trip from Yosemite Valley to Glacier Point. Although the two were worlds apart on such topics as hunting and forest management (Muir once described Roosevelt as someone “who takes a sloppy, unintelligent interest in forests”), they found common ground in the wild. Muir, a deft lobbyist, let the rugged rock walls and stately groves do his bidding. And the blustery hunter ate it up: “The first night we camped in a grove of giant sequoias,” Roosevelt later wrote. “... the enormous cinnamon-colored trunks rising about us like the columns of a vaster and more beautiful cathedral than was ever conceived by any human architect.” Two actors portray Muir and Roosevelt in a reenactment of the pair’s arrival at Glacier Point, the spot at which they were photographed 100 years ago. To be in the moment, do your own reenactment and hike the steep 4.8 miles from valley floor to Glacier Point to get a feel for the soul-changing scenery. The reenactment will be at 12:30 p.m. Saturday at Glacier Point Amphitheater. The actors also re-create the pair in “The Tramp and the Roughrider” at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Yosemite Valley Visitor Center; $6. A slide show of “Teddy Roosevelt’s Yosemite” will be shown at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at Yosemite Lodge and at 8:30 p.m. Thursday at Wawona Hotel. Information: (209) 372-0200.