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They say you have to run before you walk. Sometimes you have to walk before you walk, as well.

I had ridden the icy ruts up the long hill on Stones Pocket Road with only minor slippage, not bad given new snow on top of old ice, but when I reached the top and saw the road drop down and bend around, I chickened out before my car could.

There was no turn-around, so I backed down those same icy ruts, getting stuck only once, found safe parking on the flats and headed back up, this time on foot. There were still some treacherous stretches but soon I reached the point where I had stopped a while earlier, then the point where another car had given up and gone back, then crossed the little one-lane bridge where mine were the only human footprints in the clean white snow. A half hour later and I reached the place where I had intended to start walking, in Baxter's Hollow, a small and special spot in the Baraboo Hills, a huge and special place.

It was worth the walk.

If regions had resumes, this forested sanctuary called the Baraboo Hills could get any job it wanted. As early as the 1960s the Nature Conservancy recognized its vital importance and began to work on preservation. A decade ago it was named one of the 75 Last Great Places in the Western Hemisphere. For its geological significance, a 50,000-acre chunk of the Baraboo Hills was identified as a National Natural Landmark, and conservation groups of every stripe have staked claims here in order to keep it a special place.

144,000 acres

Some people hear of the Baraboo Hills and think first of nearby Devils Lake State Park, the most heavily used of the state's outdoor gems, but the hills are much bigger than that, covering some 144,000 acres in Sauk and Columbia counties here in southern Wisconsin.

The area is known especially for the extensive upland forest that sits atop a sprawling oval-shaped quartzite bedrock.

Last week the Baraboo Hills' resume got a little longer. The Wisconsin Bird Conservation Initiative and the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology recognized the Baraboo Hills as the state's second Important Birding Area, which may not impress many birds -- they don't need to be told -- but might boost ongoing efforts to preserve the region against the relentless pressure of development. Local communities won't mind if it also brings a few extra dollars from the binocular bunch, either.