from the jacket . . . IN THE HIGH SIERRA wilderness country that is the climax of what John Muir liked to call the Range of Light, Wright fell in love with the high world even as Muir had, and each summer brought him closer to its forms, its moods, its tones, its light -- and to the thousand textures that unfolded as the trail turned or as a trailess slope opened up on a broad sweep or an intimate glen that no man had seen before.      Oh, others may have stood there, yes. But none could see what he saw, not until with black cloth and box he had worked his magic, had captured and carried away the essence of beauty without harming a hair of it, had printed and fixed his image, h ad let others see it at last, far from where it was, and had led them, in that way,to look for it and find it next time . . . --DAVID BROWER