“Climb
the mountain not to plant your flag, but to embrace the challenge, enjoy the
air and behold the view. Climb it so you can see the world, not so the world
can see you.” ― David McCullough Jr.
When I was a kid, I remember how I
wanted to fly and see the things from a bird’s eye perspective. I wanted to
know how it feels to see a full view of the planet and anything inside it.
That dream started to materialize when
I started hiking.
Hiking was not a new thing – I’ve been
invited a couple of times by my friends to join them but I find in impractical
at first. I mean, who would waste their time and effort to be exposed to heat
and be too tired climbing mountains when you can stay in your home, sit down
and relax while watching television or go to a mall and hang out with your
friends. The fact of snakes, leeches and caterpillars added to the fright and
so I rejected all of the invitations. It wasn’t just for me, I told myself.
These perceptions changed after I went
for a required camping on one of my classes in UP. That was back then 2013. We
went for a hike in Mt. Makiling and it was my first time to spend four hours of
my life just walking through the muddy and rocky trails of a mountain, welcomed
by insects and leeches. We never reached the peaks, it was just more of a messy
trail formed for such class. That was my first time. It was the start of my
mountaineering escapades.
What made me hooked to mountain hiking then?
Simple – it’s the beauty of the
undiscovered and the feeling of being one with nature. I’ve been an advocate of
the environment. For the past seven years, I’ve been living in metropolitan
suburbs and we would all agree to the fact that in the cities, pollution is
everywhere. It has been my hobby to visit parks and places where I can find
peace with nature, but after my first hike, I found myself wanting to embrace
that peace and solemnity I will never find on a park - solitude of hearing
The sight on the summit and the feeling
of being a conqueror add color to the hike. I never reached the summit on the
first hike, yes, but it made me push myself forward to conquer a summit because
I know that the summit has that single thing that only it can provide – a majestic
view of the planet. Though one can take an airplane and see the earth from a
high altitude, the price one will pay in reaching mountain summits is worthy,
with all the efforts you took just to climb and make your way to the peak. Both
of them leads to the thing but one will fill that’s he is more of a conqueror
on a mountain.
Hiking might be really gruesome and
tiring but nature has a lot to offer and that is the wonder of it. Like what I
always tell my friends who want to try hiking, hiking requires courage. It
needs a deep sense of appreciation – that after all the sweat, leg hurts and
back pain that one might experience, the reward is priceless.
After my first hike, I am happy that
until now, I am continuing this passion to conquer and discover mountains. As
they say, it’s not the mountain that you conquer – it’s yourself, and I would
always want to conquer myself. To conquer mountains.
