Essay #2 Canyons and Mountains: A Travel Narrative
This paper tells the story of the morning's hike up Poly Canyon and over Poly Mountain. It combines impressionistic personal description with factual information about the landscape of interest to people exploring Cal Poly Land. Like any story, it has a beginning, middle and end, and a turning point or climax.
As you walk, attend to sights, sounds, smells, sensations of touch, pains and pleasures, as well as weather, geological features, vegetation, wildlife, and human constructions. Be on the lookout for moments of contrast and transition, such as those between canyon and mountain, shelter and exposure, urban, rural and wild, ascending and descending, riparian corridor and serpentine outcrop. Use the Field Guide and Cal Poly Land website to enrich and inform your impressions.
Samples:
John Muir, The Mountains of California
Henry David Thoreau, from "Walking"
Katharine Peterson, Losing the Trail
Gabe Felipe, The Excursion