Insurgents did not care for spectacular snow-covered mountain ranges. Snow impeded movement and implied harsh cold. "Spectacular" meant "easy to see from a distance," and insurgents did not like being seen. Insurgents liked mountain ranges that sprawled over large reaches of territory. That crossed national borders. That were high and rugged enough to discourage casual visitors and impede the operations of police and of military forces, but not so high as to be devoid of tree cover or bitterly cold all the time. Many of the features that tourists liked, insurgents found positively undesirable—most of all, the presence of tourists. But Seamus could see at a glance that tourists would not choose to visit these mountains when the Rockies were a few hours’ drive to the east and the Cascades an equal distance to the west. These were low, forgettable mountains, no good for skiing, carved up by logging roads, partly deforested in a way that provided employment to the locals but was considered unsightly by tourists.