The late David Brower ignited the conservation movement.

When legendary Sierra Club executive director David Brower died at his home in Berkeley on Sunday, the environmental movement lost a fierce and uncompromising crusader. Brower, who was 88 when he died, left a string of accomplishments and pockets of preserved beauty in his wake that serve as testament to his life''s work.

Brower led the charge against the federal government on the damming of the Colorado River, campaigned to get nine national parks dedicated (including Point Reyes, Kings Canyon and Redwoods), helped the Wilderness Act of 1964 gain passage, and came up with the idea of making coffeetable books featuring artists like Ansel Adams (later the books, which were good PR but expensive to produce, became a point of contention with the Sierra Club leadership). He was nominated for three Nobel Prizes and served on the Sierra Club board on four occasions following his dismissal in 1969.

Carmel Valley resident Corky Matthews, a longtime environmentalist who edited the Ventana Chapter of the Sierra Club''s newsletter for 18 years, looks back on the Sierra Club board''s firing of Brower. The action came about after Brower ran full-page ads in the New York Times without the board''s permission. The campaign, aimed at keeping dams out of the Grand Canyon, likened the projects to flooding the Sistine Chapel.

"I wrote some pieces about not firing him when he was fired in 1969," Matthews recalls. "I tried very hard to find middle ground, but they decided he was just incorrigible. And he was incorrigible. But he was just a great person. He was one of a kind."

After Brower left the Sierra Club, he went on to found other groups: Friends of the Earth, the League of Conservation Voters, and the Earth Island Institute.

"Each organization seemed a little more radical than the one before," says Matthews. "I joined each organization as they came along, because I admired him tremendously. But I know he must have been very hard to work with. He was always ahead of his time. He was the originator of the line, ''Our victories are temporary and our losses are permanent.'' And he was right."

Brower''s most crushing permanent loss--the one that haunted him all his life, according to friends and family--came with the damming of Glen Canyon. Under Brower''s leadership, the Sierra Club opted not to sue the government in exchange for preservation of other lands. Matthews, who had the good fortune to visit Glen Canyon with her husband before the damming, speaks bitterly about the loss.

"It was so beautiful, and then later we went back with some friends who had a power boat," she remembers. "And if there''s any way we could have set off a stick of dynamite and blown up that dam, we would have. It''s just very commonplace now, like any other reservoir, with litter all around it.

"When you compromise, you lose in the long run," she says. "And I think that''s why David Brower became more radical with time."

Bruce Meyer, a retired physician living on the Peninsula, was friends with Brower for more than 60 years. The two met when Meyer was 16 and Brower was 26, and they soon discovered a shared interest in hiking and rock climbing, which was then done using Manila ropes and Keds.

"Dave was a very fast climber and a fast walker, and when you''d ask, ''Dave, how many miles are there to go?'' it always turned out to be a heck of a lot further than you''d been led to believe," Meyer recalls with a humorous lilt in his voice. "I cut my teeth trying to keep up with him."

"He was a very warm, very friendly person and he attracted young people particularly to his cause," Meyer reflects. "I''m sure there will be someone to pick up the reins, but it would be hard to find someone as dedicated as Dave."