Why i like trekking ?

No I won’t state in five or ten different reasons as to why I like trekking. These bullet points jotting of reasons makes one more concerned about finishing all the points rather than understanding and analyzing what’s written. So we will continue in the old school style of reasoning. Apart from the numerous numbers of valid reasons to trek, such as breaking away from the shackles of daily drudgery, finding peace and relaxing in the calmness of mountains, enjoying with family or friends, experiencing something different or connecting with the nature, there is one more reason to why some people trek. Some people trek to discover their inner selves and become better person.

To begin with, trekking is something that has no place for any competition. Who can you possibly have your competition with? Fellow trekkers, who themselves are busy admiring nature, introspecting or testing their physical and mental capabilities – even if you try and have competition with them you soon realize that you are the one who is losing on the sights of the beautiful trail and the peace of mind which brought you all the way from your comfort zone. The next contender could be the Himalayas, but I dare you not to get into competition with them. You are trekking not because you wished but because they let you. A slight change in the mood of nature and you could be caught in an avalanche, landslide, storm, flood or god knows what. Himalayas in their vastness and grandeur make you feel so small on the big scale of things. In truthfulness, the magnanimity of the Himalayas takes any form of completion out of question leaving your mind with a peace that we miss in our busy lives these days. This gives one ample amount of time to soak in the beauty of nature and introspect oneself. Removing one from the materialistic world and putting him into a world without electric, mobile or internet connections helps him to focus on the things which are of real importance to that person and which were all the while ignored in the daily hassle. Trekking eliminates the white noise by removing all the superficial worries. It is like a mirror being wiped clean to see our ignored self.

Solitude walk on frozen river .

Along with discovering oneself, Trekking puts to test one’s physical and mental endurance. Long hours of walking in the sun without a sight of the next campsite, sudden change of weather resulting in rains, snow falls, or storms, winds along with thunder and lightning hurling your tents at nights,  or hours to the summit and down without water, can break you down both physically and mentally.  Altitude too can sometimes play with your mind making you quirky or gloomy. As the quote goes, “Mountains have a way of dealing with overconfidence”.  Mountains in their fairness do justice by treating all the humans irrespective of their sizes in the same manner. Doesn’t matter if you a small lean guy or a tall well-built person you will be put to test with yourself. Do you have enough strength to carry your weight? Are your lungs strong enough to supply oxygen to your body muscles? Or Are you mentally strong enough to cope with the nature whims? Each and every of the above mentioned question here is testing you without putting you in competition with anyone. This in turn helps you improve yourself. As in the words of Edmund Hillary, “It’s not the mountains we conquer but ourselves”. Each time you go in the mountains you will return if not being a better self than at least a more informed one.

Camp on iced floor at -15 degree Celsius

“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts; it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you-it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you…Hopefully, you leave something good behind” –Anthony Bourdain

Sometimes you have to earn the water you drink

Finally, what makes trekking unique compared to any other activity is that it takes control out of our hands. We humans as a race tend to control everything around us. While in reality sometimes it makes sense to accept or adapt to changes instead of controlling them. Trekking imbibes in us the qualities of patience, understanding and acceptance. Sometimes you may have to drop the idea of reaching the summit due to heavy snow or storm while you were just a few hundred feet away from it, or you might not be able to see peaks from base camp due to bad weather in spite of several days of hardships to reach the base camp. Sometimes you just have to drop your whole plan because nature decided otherwise and enjoy whatever you can in that situation. The acute mountain sickness is another teacher who teaches patience in a hard way-you cannot gain more than certain feet in a single day because your body needs to acclimatize to changes in pressure and oxygen levels. In short, Trekking teaches you a lot of life lessons.

Snowfall ruining our practice.

To conclude, trekking is like a meditation to me. It’s what dance is to a dancer, music is to Sufi singer or spirituality is to saints-It’s a way to connect with oneself and the almighty. Once you start the trek you are lost in it so deep that you disconnect with the worldly affairs and in turn meet your better self.

P.S.  The pictures are from my own travels :)