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How do flocks, herds and swarms proceed through disordered environments? Thisquestion is not only crucial to animal groups in the wild, but also tovirtually all applications of collective robotics, and active materialscomposed of synthetic motile units. In stark contrast, appart from very rareexceptions, our physical understanding of flocking has been hitherto limited tohomogeneous media. Here we explain how collective motion survives togeometrical disorder. To do so, we combine experiments on motile colloidscruising through random microfabricated obstacles, and analytical theory. Weexplain how disorder and bending elasticity compete to channel the flow ofpolar flocks along sparse river networks akin those found beyond plasticdepinning in driven condensed matter. Further increasing disorder, wedemonstrate that collective motion is suppressed in the form of a first-orderphase transition generic to all polar active materials.

Distortion and destruction of colloidal flocks in disordered environments