The Sierras of CA have always tantalized me, as being just too far away to drive in a day, so any trip there would need a good four travel days in all, or else two days of truly marathon driving (for my tastes anyway; some people think nothing of 700 mile days). Yet, they have so many grand places tucked into them that I could hike there for years and still not see them all.

The Pasayten Wilderness up near the Canadian border keeps calling to me, too, but it has a similar so-near-yet-so-far quality that has kept me from it until now.

I can easily dispense with the Himalayas or Caucausus or Andes. Living in the western USA offers mountains enough that it is both inexhaustible and equally sublime. No need to fly halfway around the world for that.