Mountains!!
The relation I have with them, is the one that remains less expressive from the moment I start talking about it.
You do need a break from your normal life and a monotonous job. What I can say and as per the max % of our population we observe: People take a break and spend some time on beaches or on mountains chilling up with a bottle of beer or whiskey, dancing on the high beat songs and borne fire around it, getting hangover to an extent, exploring different cafes and food.
Great and one should do that!!
It is necessary. After all, we do have a saturation point.
But the moment I talk about the mountain is always my way of showing gratitude towards it. I don’t know why and how, but when am on it my brain works in a different manner. There is always a Thrill and adventure when I talk about my fun…I get high on it.. except food too But then why do I choose something where there is no rest no chillness and every day you will face some challenges. And people do ask me the same question. Why can’t you just simply chill and relax?
To that my answer is like :
The real fun of being on Mountains is to climb one of them!! High altitude mountain trekking!! Not all of us can do. You can have a good physique to climb a mountain but what you need the most is your mental health. As I said, “Chilling is fun … climbing is not!!” Don’t take them lightly. Respect Mountains and they will respect you back.
In case of trekking, I would say: Do it once if you truly are a mountain lover. Get those Goosebumps, that adrenaline rush, fear of falling down on a snowy patch, to live with minimalistic things, helping your co-trekkers in climbing, feel that wind, listen to birds chirping, midnight stargazing, fear of washing hands in cold water, taking hours to feel the warmth of your sleeping bag, pink nose, sunburnt face, hefty breath, 70ltr of the rucksack on your shoulder, mobile shut, fewer ppl around… this is just little of what we used to do.
Brahmatal:
They say it was God Brahma Ji who used to mediate here near the lake. This beautiful trek is in the mountains of Uttrakhand.
It started from our base camp which was Lohajung. It takes 10 hours from Rishikesh to reach Lohajung.
Day 1 because of the travel we didn’t walk we stayed in Lohajung for acclimatization. The next day, we had our trek started. The Initial 2 days were fine clear blue sky, windy, a normal 6-8km of the trail we had to walk per day day-1 campsite was Gujreni ( covered in greenery with all those high trees and in between the Jungle) and on day 2 it was Tilandi ( plane barren land no trees all you can see were mountains around it) and a beautiful view of all major mountains were visible from there ( Trishul, Darya Bugyal, Roopkundetc ). We (14 trekkers + 3 guides) all were walking slowly at our pace.
It was on Day 3 of my trek: Walking through the trails on a stormy snowy day where all you can see was land covered up with a white layer. The journey is full of twists and turn. Originally we loved watching the snow, being in the snow risks were there and so was fun. A footstep behind and a footstep ahead with trek pole by ur side and a fear inside the next step I keep I hope I don’t fall. It was Windy, with those snowflakes hitting your face making it difficult to walk. They say in mountains slow is fast. Brahmatal the lake was our campsite for day 3.
But then opening the zip of our tent became difficult because it was all frozen, and similarly, washing utensils for our meals was getting difficult because of the chilled water we had. Temp was between-7 to -10.
And then I was wondering what these climbers/trekkers go through while climbing peaks like Mt Everest or K2 or Annapurna.
I was searching for a line to describe what my feelings are: Until I saw 14 peaks on Netflix and boom a mountaineer said :
“it is a place where you have to cope up with the pain”
Pain: Which your body goes through while ascending and descending the peak. Everybody part has that sensation, you may even go through lack of oxygen. But then the urge to be on peak and do summit is itself happiness for a climber!!
On the summit, your soul becomes part of the mountain.
And when you are in the mountains you know who you really are.
