I have been fortunate to spend most of my life living and working in some of the most beautiful, historically rich, wild and biologically diverse national parks in the world. Yet, one can be in a place and not truly come to know it. Some places shout for attention with large and extraordinary features; others speak in whispers with the small and commonplace. Still, all of them reveal their essence only to those who take the time to venture away from roads and developed areas into the interior.

It is there that serendipitous discoveries are made and where one can come to truly understand the meaning of wildness, the connections among living things. Only in the backcountry, or at least away from the clamor of park roads and developments, can visitors discover hidden and little-know places. Locations where they can hear the the uncluttered sounds of wild critters or the subtle voice of a mountain stream and smell the pure fragrance of a meadow or forest. It is in these places that a person can experience an epiphany, a sudden revelation of meaning.

I have been to such places. They have spoken to me of the diversity and complexity that strengthen the wild environment, the abiding nature of ecological process, the relationships of living things with the physical world, the inevitability of death and the certainty of rebirth.