A great splendor ...

In one of my early posts here, I mentioned that I was very fond of the work of the late CBS Television journalist Charles Kuralt ... and that Charles Kuralt was pretty fond of Montana. In part, that was certainly because Montana is where he would rendezvous with his long-time mistress, but Kuralt loved the state for other reasons, too. One of the reasons was fishing -- like so many people, Kuralt was passionate about the great trout streams of southwestern Montana. Here's a quote from his 1995 volume, Charles Kuralt's America:

I fell in love with Montana at first sight. I was young and all the world was beautiful to me, but Montana was a great splendor. The steep, snow-clad reaches caught my eye first, and they were wonderful to see, but over time, my affection came to be for the welcoming valleys. And not for the valleys, exactly, but for the rivers that ran through the valleys. And not for the fastest or deepest rivers, but for the smaller ones that would support a floating fly.