Trekking is an activity, that is; if not a life-changing experience, it surely is an experience that makes you live life to the fullest. Trekking takes you new places you step a foot on picturesque landscapes, your eyes witness flora and fauna of a new place. You give your entire body a treat of new things that make your senses activated and functioning to an enhanced perception of experiencing things.
If you are falling short of places to trek to, try trekking in the Himalayas. The Himalayas is the largest mountain range in the world. This glorious mountain range has the most versatile trails that tend to all kinds of trekking enthusiasts. Whether you are a beginner or a pro at trekking, the Himalayas have an array of trails you can choose from.
Most of the Himalayas lay in Nepal. This country hosts about 60% of the mountain ranges. Trekking in Nepal is a feast to the trekker’s mind. One of the most famous trekking destinations in Nepal is trekking in The Annapurna Base Camp. Trekking in India is equally thrilling as it hosts about 30% of the Himalayas.
But why trek at all? What is it about trekking that attracts people?
Since the times when humans came into being and moved in flocks from one place to the other, we realized that traveling was inherent to human nature. Humans have traveled far and wide, settling from one place to the other, living in places and conditions that were favorable to their existence. Where they could feed, reproduce and grow in peace.
This form of traveling happened when there was no concept of boundaries and countries that were holding them back from traveling wherever they wanted. It is also inherent to human nature to seek discomfort. One can attest to this by the number of wars these flocks had to go through while traveling to newer places.
In the end, these places and people found a place that they felt belongingness to and then they stopped. The stopping of traveling then gave birth to human civilization as we know it to have evolved today.
Today’s scenario
In the 21st century, there are many ailments that have gotten common with time; Ailments such as stress, anxiety and depression. With the onset of these ailments, we have forgotten things that are inherent to human nature, such as living in natural surroundings, where nature is at its raw best. Our tall buildings and skyscrapers have trapped us within the illusions of luxury and commercialism that is attractive to the eyes. This is the illusion that has attracted everyone in the world to work for.
When we have visions that are shiny, it makes us stay in a condition that matches the vision. We stay in our comforts, our comfortable chairs, hi-tech computers that never fail to entertain, our gadgets and appliances that keep us busy while at our comfort.
When one chooses to go on a trek, they choose to reconnect to all those things that made us human in the first place. The raw discomfort of nature makes us realize that our bodies have become slaves to comfort. We realize that being humble, your survival instincts, respect for nature and realizing that nature truly is the greatest force of the earth, are the only things that keep you alive in the real world, or whatever is left of it.
But humans truly have a way around for conquering things. Since we could not find a force greater than nature itself, our conquering spirits have led us to perish them in more than one ways. Deforestation, pollution, and erosion are things that are man-made. And these man-made perishables are all to add to that “illusion of comfort” that has blinded us.
What we do with while trekking, is a return to the natural world where there are no illusions but real-time dangers, real obstacles, real solutions to real problems and real-time solace, that we have forgotten, or rather have no time to experience.
Trekking gets us out of the shiny caves that we have built for ourselves, and into the nourishing greenery that welcomes us like children into greater knowledge and higher learning. It helps us appreciate even the fruit that we eat after a long day’s trek. It makes us appreciate the pristine taste of mountain waters that quenches our thirst after a long day in the field. Trekking helps reconnect to that human behind all of the glitter, which made us what we are today, or what you are today.