Goose Music...and Ultrarunning

I am a huge fan of Aldo Leopold ever sine one of my college professors back in the 1970s first introduced me to him and his amazingly insightful writings about things wild and free.

From the National Wildlife Federation editorial in the June/July 2011 issue:

What If There Be No Goose Music?

by Larry J. Schweiger, President & Chief Executive Officer


Aldo Leopold shared his concern for the future of his children in his renowned essay "Goose Music," which first appeared in his classic book A Sand County Almanac: "I hope to leave them good health, an education, and possibly even a competence. But what are they going to do with these things if there be no more deer in the hills, and no more quail in the coverts? No more snipe whistling in the meadow, no more piping of widgeons and chattering of teal as darkness covers the marsh; no more whistling of swift wings when the morning star pales in the east? And when the dawn-wind stirs through the ancient cotton-woods, and the gray light steals down from the hills over the old river sliding softly past its wide brown sandbars—what if there be no more goose music?"

We could do all our running on streets or treadmills.  Many do.

But we are a different breed of cat.  We seek the trails and the backcountry, the sights and sounds of the woods, and things like goose music.  We get it, in a visceral way that non-trail runners just don't.  And we are far the richer for it.