Aldo Leopold says “There is a peculiar virtue in the music of elusive birds. Songsters that sing from top-most boughs are easily seen and easily forgotten; they have the mediocrity of the obvious.”
I would say that this is true for most things, including rivers and backcountry inaccessible by roads. There most certainly is a peculiar virtue in traveling on foot over terrain unsuitable for vehicle traffic, away from the mediocrity of the obvious, over tracks left in the mud by wolves, bears, moose, caribou and others; to float a free flowing waterway through a valley so few get to see.
It’s June in Denali. The rivers are open and birds from all continents on the planet are passing through.
