Trekking lessons

Last weekend , I joined a bunch of enthusiast cousin in laws to trek in the majestic Sahyadris. The plan was to climb up Fort Rajgad - Shivajis first capital. The trek was supposed to be an easy one for the average trekker . But I being used to desk environements made it a quite a challenge and thorougly enjoyed it. The entire trek brought numerous thoughts to me and I am publishing some of them.

1. We still love to be materialistic and carry too much of excess baggage. Life should be like a trek and you should learn to carry only what you need to. We should make careful decisions on the baggage in our life and take very hard decisions to leave some of them behind. ( It is upto us to determine what that BAGGAGE is ........)

2. We are a tiiiiiiiiiinyyyyy component in this wonderful world and your self esteem and ego becomes useless when you are conforted with the majestic nature of mother earth. Climbing mountains gives you a very humble feeling. You are at mercy of the mother nature and it is upto you to take the right steps to survive. A wrong foot hold or slip of hand is all it takes you to come down 4000 ft and land the way you want. But one thing , even if you are falling down , the view below is spectacular :)

3. When you on a fort or any place of historic importance , feel the history. Try to get closer to the yesteryears and you will feel the spirits of the people who dwelled there. However , we being the fools what we are , we try to enjoy and sing and laugh like the baboons. We experienced this recently with a bunch a college kids from Pune fooling around and behaving like monkeys .

4. We dont pay attention to our bodies. We have a wonderful machine which can scale beyond our imagination. It is upto us to define its limits and it will scale them. Most of times , we dont allow it to take the challenge and we end up the way we are ... fat , overweight and with a stamina to climb 25 steps.... I learnt this hard way and was trailing behind almost every time , whether it was a climb or descent.

5. Survival on the fly.... We had carried tons of food on our back ( it was packed by our wives ... of course) and loved every bit of it. Morale : If you can carry your food , do it but also try to survive on what you get off the land . I know it is a hard way but , if you are camping / treking , it will be nice try to experiment for a couple of meals.

6. Potential of Maharashtra as trekking destination ..... We have not done enough to increase the awareness and accessibility to these wonderful places. A couple of forts here and there , but not enough. We all need to make an attempt on how we can make these treks attractive , charge for some basic amenities and made them available. I saw some organizations at Rajgad zeelously protecting the fort from vandalism . Somebody had commented that all the forts in Rajasthan are "female forts" whereas all the forts in Sahydadri are "male forts" ... ( For obvious reasons)

comments on these thoughts most welcome.

Sachin