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When I think of wild places in the United States, I think of rugged land, largely untracked by trails, and inaccessible to industry. I understand this solitude from humanity is contrived directly from the forced removal of indigenous people, and their original practice of maintaining healthy, productive relationships with the landscape is well known.
It was inspiring, then, to see the shepherds who daily led their herds up and down their respective sides of the valley, surrounded by granite giants. We interacted with them almost every day in some way, either as their sheep grazed in our camp, or to buy loaves of flat bread or hunks of sheep meat. Once, a shepherd summoned us to help rescue four of his sheep that got themselves stuck high on a cliff. Alix, Kevin, myself, and a Czech friend named Zdenek heeded the call and set up a rope system that gave us access to the errant sheep, fashioning harnesses for them with slings to be lowered, but ultimately just herding them down the faintest series of ledges to the ground. As thanks, the shepherds invited us over for a delicious dinner of sheep stew in their stone home.