“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity” ― John Muir, Our National Parks

Someone asked me yesterday “Why do you trek? What do you achieve? We should have gone for a picnic and enjoyed in pool.

I told him that a remote trekking destination is the only sacred place on the earth where I meet myself.  The journey to the destination is like a pilgrimage. He laughed at me and said “you can even do that even when there is no one at your home; you can lock your room and talk to yourself, why climb “

Then I asked him a question – why you need to travel outside your house when you can visit every place sitting on an HD screen with Google. He said that it was different as witnessing something in front of our eyes is refreshing and break taking.  I told him, there are many hidden places on earth which cannot be reached by a SUV, train, bus or any other means of transport.  There is only one vehicle that takes you to such destinations, and those are our legs – the natural means of transport.  Every bit of land is accessible by this means – and in the most fuel efficient manner.

I then showed him some of my trek photograph in the deep valleys of Ladakh, Bhutan and Kashmir and our very own Sahayadri Ranges near Mumbai. Further, explaining my point, I said that watching a waterfall and standing beneath one is common, but what is fascinating and exhilarating is reaching the origin of the waterfall – something of a parable between solving a problem using a Theorem versus deriving the Theorem!

Let me explain – why do I trek…

Sir Edmund Hillary has nicely put it…It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves…

Trek is getting deep into places where real nature resides – the rivers, flowers, birds, animals, lush green trees, forts, caves, waterfalls, unknown water bodies, pristine clear waters, nomadic life, et al.  Last but not the least, pure Air, which is a luxury now a days for those of us who reside in concrete jungles.

It’s the trekkers and climbers who bring unknown places hidden in deep pockets of the earth to us on documentaries that we see on television channels like Nat Geo and Discovery.  Trekkers spend days climbing to old forts and Alpine peaks for one footage of forgotten history and snow leopards kind of stuff.

A Trek is often an ice breaker with the self – mountains are quiet, one does not hear sounds except the chirping of birds.  At times this sound is far better than the instrumental music we hear; smell of flora and fauna is different and better then the fragrances we wear; sitting beneath a tree and listening to ones favorite music or reading a book with no disturbance can be achieved only in the wilderness, which only a mountain has to offer.

Trekking eliminates the fear of heights.  We also develop ourselves by setting a goal, which is the summit.  The goal is broken down into a set of steps – like 50 steps and halt and slowly achieving the target, trek is never a 100 meter race. The fastest trekker is as fast as the last one.

“After all this time questioning whether I could trust myself, my instinct had proven right — I’d found a path in pathless woods.” ― Aspen Matis, Girl in the Woods: A Memoir

Trekking is team work – staying with people you don’t know. Trekking is going back to the nomadic way of life – with no cell phone coverage, no electricity, the iPod running dry in 2 days.  Understanding life without gadgets and luxury and understanding Humanity is what trekking helps us in doing.  Trekking makes us learn how people in deep villages or mountains live, what efforts they undertake for their livelihood.  Meeting small children climbing mountains to attend school, tasting local cuisine made in the traditional way has an enchantment to itself.  Somewhere in these trek trips we reboot our internal system and realize how to be in content in life.   We respect the divine powers who have given us so much and yet we yearn for more and all this for nothing.

Trekking is often thought of as a difficult exercise of climbing tall mountains.  Yes, they are tall but not out of reach.  All it requires is the Will.  One has to start with climbing stairs instead of lift and elevators, legs and body slowly become immune.  The next step is to climb small hills around home or some steep road, then join some trek group for an easy trek which is 1-2 hours gradual climb.  Once you are off the main roads and into villages where the real nature, the greenery the waters emerge, the fear of climb greenery starts to emerge, the fear of climb eliminates itself from your system.

That, my friend, is why I trek.

He replied… “dude, when you go next, I would want to join.  Its high time I spent some time with myself.”

Welcome to the World of Trekkers.

Mubarak Hussain is an avid trekker and can be reached on mubs.75@gmail.com for any details related to trekking in India.

“Feeling LOW? Go on mountains.” ― Prajakta Mhadnak