My second installment of things to be thankful for in America is connected to the first very closely and the next few will also be connected. They reveal my biases as an Idaho boy.   

    

2. Salmon River Tributaries

       

    The tributaries of the Salmon River are myriad. The North Fork starts high in the Bitterrot Mountains and furiously rushes down their slopes through lush green forests. The Middle Fork takes on the aridity of some of the southern mountains such as the Lemhi range. The South Fork drains the western ranges with their Lodgepole and Ponderosa pines. And there are creeks and lakes flowing out of all those mountain ranges draining the beautiful mountain lakes of the Sawtooths, the Seven Devils and all the ranges of the great Idaho Batholith. It’s an overwhelmingly wild and free river system that tumbles out of all those mountains into the Snake River in Hells Canyon. The beauty and magnitude of that river system overwhelms me and right now I find myself wishing I were hiking the banks of one of those streams.