There's something addicting about staring at maps. My mind wanders along the meandering contour lines with imaginary scenery and adventures to come. I try to spot faults, contacts of different formations, glacial landforms like moraines and eskers, ancient lake shores. I route trips and daydream of how to get to the most remote locations the map conjours up. Visions of year-long trips engulf me looking at major waterways to the north. Distant mountain ranges, barren lakes and miles of empty terrain fill me with wonder. I dream of traversing the passes, shooting those rapids and running dog teams along those far-off contours.
Explorers are drawn to locations where the contours meet. They're places where hills meet lakes, where mountains meet the sea, where cascading rivers tumble over waterfalls. Most of the time, however, we just follow the contours out our back door. Today we skied up the Devil's Track River gorge...
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