Thankfulness and the wild places within

Every summer my wife and I like to wander off into the backcountry. Sometimes we go by backpack. Sometimes by boat. Our vessel of choice usually being a kayak or canoe. We go walking or paddling into the wild landscapes. Because they are silent modes of travel, we can fully immerse ourselves into the wilderness. We can find those wild places within ourselves. 

We’ve explored far flung places in North America, including gems like Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness, the vast reaches of the Boundary Waters Canoe area and unbroken backcountry of the high Sierra. Some years we have less time and stay closer to home to explore areas like the Scotchman Peaks, with country just as wild, and deserving of Wilderness designation by congress.  

This summer we ventured into the “Great Burn”, an area along the Idaho/Montana border, southwest of Missoula. An area also proposed for Wilderness, the Great Burn is as wild as any country we have seen in the “lower 48”. The measure of a place’s wildness can be taken by how we ourselves slowdown. How we become part of the scene. We start to notice things happening around us and notice things within us.