Your Cessna soars eastward over the glittering Chitina River. Row upon row of mountain ridges march off into the wilderness. Eagles soar beneath you. Ducks splash in the sunlit water of a thousand glacial ponds.
"What are these mountains called?" asks your companion, over the rumbling engine.
The pilot glances back at her. "These mountains haven't been named yet."
You turn to each other. The Cessna banks northward, coming in low. You skim along between craggy cliffs, breeze down over the tops of black spruce. And then with an exhilarating bump of the tires on a grassy plain, you are on earth. It is silent.
“No one,” says your pilot, “has ever landed here before.” And he opens the door.
