Why Do You Hike?


If you are the type or person who is obsessed with hiking - who returns from a hike back to civilization, but then immediately starts thinking about the next hike - who is constrained in many ways from hiking more often but whenever the mind is at rest, the thoughts switch back to the mountains - in whose opinion the fondest memories include those from past hiking experiences, then this is the place you may find some answers and perhaps a better perspective on life itself.


He who goes to the Hills, goes to his mother.

- Hindu Proverb


The outsider, keeping strictly within all that is rational, can never understand that the mountaineer is driven by motives which defy rational explanation, motives which are quite different from merely being able to say that he has stood on a summit and admired the view. In other words, if a man has to ask the question why, he'll never understand.

- Georges Grosjean


Happiness is often met by those who have learned to live in every moment of the present; none has such prodigal opportunities of attaining that art as the traveller.

- T. G. Longstaff


The aims of mountaineering lie outside the scope of direct material interest or individual satisfaction in the necessities of life. It has its meaning within itself. Movement and innovation, the raising and lowering of tension and the combination of difficulties and their solutions, all tend to make climbing like a game. Mountaineering stands apart from moral functions, apart from wisdom and folly, from good and evil. In the rhythm and harmony of a climb, the human body experiences an enhanced opportunity for expression, a proof of its existance. It is not bound up with any philosophy of life or civilization, nor the financial prosperity, it is merely a question of having started to do it.

- Reinhold Messner


Motive is the cardinal factor. If the dominant reason for climbing is to achieve fame or beat a rival, if there is no pleasure without success, the temptation to ignore danger may well be irressitable; but if the motive is a real feeling for the mountains and a love of climbing as a means of giving expression to that feeling, a reasonable prudence is likely to prevail. The springs of enchantment lie within ourselves; they arise from our sense of wonder, that most precious of gifts, the birthright of every child.

- Eric Shipton


All men dream; but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.

- T. E. Lawrence


The charm of mountaineering lies not in the climbing, but in the great range of emotions provoked.

- Frank Smythe


There is no material gain in climbing a mountain. The thing is useless, like poetry, and dangerous, like love making. To some people - only a very small percentage of people - hiking appers to be as essential and satisfactory as poetry or love making are to some others.
- Showell Styles


Man is a contradictory creature. Throughout his history he has sought security and plenty; yet he soon becomes restless and discontented. Deep in his nature there is a yearning for the hard and perilous road, for the difficulties and dangers that test his skill and courage. Recognizing this, it seems less strange that men climb mountains.

- Eric Shipton


Such persons as have not traversed mountains of the first order, will with difficulty form an idea of what repays the fatigues which are experienced and the dangers which are undergone there. Still less will they be able to imagine that these fatigues are not without their pleasures, and these dangers not without their charms.

- Ramond de Carbunnieres


Only the Eternal's strength in us dare
To attempt the immense adventure of that climb

- Sri Aurobindo



All the above quotes are taken from the book "Trek the Sahyadris" by Harish Kapadia. To find more details about the book, click here.