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.
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| 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.
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| 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
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| 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.
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| 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 :)
