There’s something truly enchanting about mountains. Large, silent and grand, mountains attract visitors from around the globe to marvel at their scale and age. For most, the attraction to mountains has little to do with the views, and a lot to do with a primal connection to the natural world, adventure and a state of mind. From the hardened hiker to the daring climber, from the man or woman who only gets to the top of a mountain for the view, there is something about mountains that takes hold of the spirit.
The Allure of Mountain Scenery
Mountains are a poetics of nature’s largesse, an emblem of strength and endurance and eternal beauty. Their landscapes are diverse – verdant valleys and glaciated summits, rocky and shaly – and their perpetually shifting structures beg to be explored. For those who love mountains, the scenery is a visual feast, with clouds floating between peaks, rivers flowing through gorges, and sunlight casting golden hues on cliffs and meadows.
Adventure and Freedom
Mountains call to those with an adventurous spirit. And it is through hiking, climbing, skiing and the like that one gains the freedoms and exhilarations of the mountains. As far as climbers are concerned, mountains are puzzles to be worked out, benchmarks against which to measure themselves. The ascent of a mountain is a journey inward, a trial of body and mind in which mountaineers are exposed to changing conditions, tested by the body, and challenged mentally. At the end of a long, hard hike or climb, to be up there is an achievement of the most visceral kind, and the view is the greatest reward of all.
Looping trails through forest and meadow and over rugged terrain offer walkers a kind of immersion in nature that is impossible to achieve by any other means. Hiking is the ultimate combination of exercise and stress relief, thought, and contemplation of all that the world has to offer. Just breathing mountain air does it, and human beings find themselves shaken and refreshed when confronted with such ancient beauty.
Tranquility and Healing Power
Mountains are also a haven of silence, which is another thing about which hardly anything else can deliver. The silence and peace of the alpine tops is healing and an escape from the world’s din and bustle. Mountains, mountains, mountains, and vistas, vistas, vistas, everywhere, it’s a place that calls for presence, a place where phones are silenced and nature remembered.
The mountains’ arts of healing are well-rehearsed; we’re less strung-out, less anxious, in the mountains. Whether sitting next to a mountain stream in meditation or simply observing the scenery, the mountains have a different silence, a peace that invites contemplation and discovery. For city dwellers like ourselves, a trip to the mountains is a cleansing restart, a reset of the horizon, a reminder that beauty is found in simplicity.
Mountains and Conservation
People who love mountains feel a certain obligation to protect those wild places. Mountain ecosystems are delicate, home to abundant plant and animal life, much of which is highly susceptible to the impacts of human activities. Such a consciousness is the source of conservationism, ranging from mountain tourists who talk of responsible tourism, sustainable hiking and conservation of nature.
And by preserving the mountains, man is kept lifted up, searching, bringing himself to a state of peace. Most organisations spend a lot of effort keeping trails clear, mitigating erosion and educating visitors how to visit without contributing to further damage. With easy measures, such as packing out waste, observing wildlife and hiking on designated trails, mountain ecosystems can be preserved.