The Q is a place where I enjoy the illusion of wilderness.   If I can find a route where I can paddle for a few days and see nobody, then it's close enough to a wilderness for me.  

Nevertheless, I am well aware that many feet have trod the ground I walk up there...except maybe on my Memory Lane boondoggle  :P ...and thus my passage is eased.  There is comfort in a path because one can reasonably expect that all those who made the path eventually got to where they were going.  

Wilderness begins when one steps off the path and makes one's own way in the world.  Yet even so, eventually one hopes to rejoin a path which leads one back to what drove the desire to leave the path in the first place.  When that path is rejoined, wilderness is at an end.

Not all paths are on land and not all paths are even in the physical world.  Turns out wilderness is a rather portable concept after all, if one knows the trick of how to find it regardless of one's current physical location.  

Most of the time, I prefer the illusion of wilderness over true wilderness.  True wilderness is a dangerous place indeed, and I have responsibilities in the non-wilderness that I do not take lightly.