Book Reviews

Across Yosemite’s Wilderness:
A Trailblazing Woman’s Career Protecting the Park’s Backcountry
Laurel Munson Boyers
June 17, 2025
ISBN-13: ‎978-1493088706
Contact: Anthony Pomes, apomes@globepequot.com
Reviewed by Edith G. Tolchin (edietolchin.com/book-reviews)

“Yosemite National Park is about the same size as the state of Rhode Island. . .
This book will take you on a journey into that realm, to recount some of those memories from my past.”

Laurel Munson Boyers was Yosemite’s first female wilderness manager. Early in the book she recounts an adventure in 2007 of traversing the entire park with her patrol team before “turning over” the care of the land as she retired after 31 years of service.

Campfire evenings were times of sharing tales—like that of a 1977 plane crash carrying burlap sacks, (with) about “three tons of pot.”

Boyers reminisces that old-time camping has changed to cause less land stress and more pristine backcountry, “with dripping gardens of wildflowers.” Yet, over the years, various campgrounds have affected the wilderness values.

Trout were an abundant staple and 33 million were stocked in Yosemite’s waterways between 1887 and 1991, though this practice proved “deadly and disruptive” to the ecosystem.

In another section of the manuscript, Boyers talks about her life in the Yosemite area between 1952 and 2024. It begins with her birth in Yosemite Valley, and she had two older brothers. There were lovely memories of feeding bears, (Plains) “Indian dancing” (now discontinued), and glorious sunsets.

During her grade school and high school years, her family lived in “Rock Island,” just outside of Yosemite. After high school, she went back to Yosemite, first working as a maid. She did nude modeling for the Ansel Adams Gallery, located in the Valley, “artfully draped only in the Indian jewelry . . .”

During college summers she always worked in Yosemite’s Tuolumne Lodge, “housed in shared tents and fed three meals a day. . .” She chose travel and outdoors over completing a degree and was hired by the National Park Service in 1976, at a time when women “broke barriers” within the agency.

“The art of rangering . . . a learned skill, and it was instinct.” There were hardships “. . . in the wilderness alone, with 800 to 1,000-pound animals. . .”

Each season had its outdoor challenges, winter likely being the most difficult, with a long laundry list of dos and don’ts in every aspect of running the park. “Getting a good core with the snow-sampling tubes was a skill . . .”

Over the years, Boyers was fortunate to partake in worldwide trips sponsored by Yosemite to Namibia, Japan, and New Zealand, as well as to host former First Lady Laura Bush on a Yosemite hiking trip in 2001. After that tour, how many people get invited to a private cocktail party with a First Lady?

There were more than seven Native American tribes who inhabited the Valley for thousands of years. Boyers attended school with many and believes everyone should “. . . work together to live correctly on this earth.”

CONCLUSION:

Informative and vivid black and white photos adorn the manuscript, along with original artwork by Boyers’ brother, artist Lex Munson. Expect gorgeous descriptions of the journey’s scenery . . . “Brightly colored butterflies and iridescent dragonflies joined us at the freshwater spring box where the water was flowing crystal clear and cold.”

As the first female wilderness manager and mounted wilderness manager, Boyers claims, “I don’t remember ever feeling overt resistance.” She felt she was harder on herself but “blazed a trail for other women to follow . . .”

Edith G. Tolchin has been a journalist, editor, author, and book reviewer since 1998.
She has written five books, most recently Fanny on Fire and Secrets of Successful Women Inventors. She has done over 150 interviews and 55 book reviews. Contact her at edietolchin.com.