In The Mule Men: A History of Stock Packing in the Sierra Nevada, Louise A. Jackson takes us inside the adventure, hardships, and joys peculiar to the packing trade. The book covers two hundred years, from the 1750s to the 1950s. The physical area is the southern Sierra Nevada, the backcountry containing most of California's wilderness and national park lands. From Yosemite to the Tehachapis, the Tuolumne River to the Kern, these lands above and beyond any major roadways are the wild areas where the majority of the modern Sierra packers have plied their trade.