Why I go for trekking

During one of my older posts, I was curious about my addiction to mountain climbing. As I have reflected more and more on this, things have started to become clearer and I have started to form opinions as to explain my addiction.

Himalayan treks generally require a good level of physical fitness and we start training to run for about 4km in 30 minutes. Preparations start at least one month before trek and entails hard work and running everyday. Being physically fit definitely increases confidence and promotes good health, which I realize is an important side-effect of trekking.

Once the trek starts, we go into nature and explore beautiful places that are still untouched and not pillaged by human beings, breathing in the pure air of the mountains and drinking natural water of the streams, rather than breathing the polluted air and drinking polluted water of the cities. Simon, in Touching the Void, says that he climbs mountains to get away from the clutter of civilization. We are all trying to put back the risk in our lives and deliberately come out of our comfort zones, just to feel alive and make our heart pumping again.

'A good traveler is not intent upon arriving' - Lao Tze's famous quote is true for trekking. If a person only longs to get to the final destination or the mountain peak, then the trek itself becomes a chore and he won't enjoy it at all. A trek almost forces the person to be conscious of his journey and go in a sort of meditative state, admiring the beauty of the place. The person ends at the camp, quite tired, and sleep descends upon him, after a long day's work. No need to attempt to sleep. I have very good quality sleep when I am on treks. And my digestion is very good. Seeing people go for their morning ablutions with a bottle (lota) in hand and returning after sometime with a smile on their faces is easily noticable.

Many people go for ego climbing where they want to finish the trek first or climb the mountain very quickly. Acute mountain sickness and dehydration, nausea generally result either from not being physically fit, or doing an ego climb and not being in control. From experience, a trekker will know that ego climbing is not the way to do things. So, on treks, I generally meet people who are not ego-climbers and who generally have a bit of wisdom. No wonder, that meeting people on treks is a special kind of social event and enjoying a trek with like minded people does have a different feeling than trekking all alone or in a small group.

The satisfaction of completion gives confidence and acts as a motivator to go for another journey. Even the dissatisfaction of leaving a trek incomplete, acts like a challenge, leaving a feeling of incompleteness inside the person which calls for another trek to be completed. Such is the power of this beautiful sport. Since I had left my first trek incomplete, I was very much motivated to finish the second and I did finish it.

Trekking is indeed a special kind of sport, a kind of a non-zero-sum game where everybody can win by reaching the final destination. To me, this explains why trekking is so addictive.