The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Mountains by Stewart Edward White: emerged into chaparral, dry loose shale, yucca, Spanish
bayonet, heated air and the bleached burned-out
furnace-like country of arid California in midsummer.
The trail dropped down through sage-brush, just as
it always did in the California we had known; the
mountains rose with the fur-like dark-olive effect of
the coast ranges; the sun beat hot. We had left the
enchanted land.
The trail was very steep and very long, and took
us finally into the country of dry brown grasses, gray
brush, waterless stony ravines, and dust. Others had
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