Only The Mountain Has Lived Long Enough

I Confess My Own Leisure To Be Spent Entirely In Search Of Adventure, Without Regard To Prudence, Profit, Self Improvement, Learning, Or Any Other Serious Thing.

I Now Suspect That Just As A Deer Herd Lives In Mortal Fear Of Its Wolves, So Does A Mountain Live In Mortal Fear Of Its Deer. And Perhaps With Better Cause, For While A Buck Pulled Down By Wolves Can Be Replaced In Two Or Three Years, A Range Pulled Down By Too Many Deer May Fail Of Replacement In As Many Decades.

I Know A Painting So Evanescent That It Is Seldom Viewed At All Except By Some Wandering Deer. It Is A River Who Wields The Brush And It Is The Same River Who Before I Can Bring My Friends To View His Work Erases It Forever From Human View. After That It Exists Only In My Mind's Eye.

Hydrologists Have Demonstrated That The Meanderings Of A Creek Are A Necessary Part Of The Hydrologic Functioning. The Flood Plain Belongs To The River. The Ecologist Sees Clearly That For Similar Reasons We Can Get Along With Less Channel Improvement On Round River.

Wilderness Areas Are First Of All A Series Of Sanctuaries For The Primitive Arts Of Wilderness Travel, Especially Canoeing And Packing.