Travel Blog: Beauty of Old Mountain: Just exploring
A little walk through Old Mountain - part #3
The mountains are calling and I must go.
-- John Muir
Today, for change, we are not going anywhere in particular. I know, it's not usual to write travel blog about mountain and not pinpoint any place to visit. Today we all expect from travel blog to give instructions where exactly to go and what exactly to do. Where to sleep, what to eat, how to get somewhere and where to go from there, what to wear and million other little facts that are required if you want to put stamp of 'Travel Blog' to your post. But, is that really necessarily? Especially for outdoor activities?
Mountains attracts more and more people every day. That's very good, don't get me wrong. I am trilled that these days you can meet so many people on those little adventures. With more people walking, cycling and climbing, we all, as a human race, become more and more aware of our place on this little rock we call Earth. And it's not just mountains, it is outdoor in general. We have fully organized safaris, dive weekends, climb to some of the highest peaks, cruises ... list is endless and getting bigger and bigger every day. It is very, very good. More and more people become aware of true beauty of Nature. It's great, but did we forget to be a little adventurous?
Your visit to Nature can be completely organized and should be completely organized up to some point. You should not gamble with place to sleep and source of water. You should never ignore that somebody MUST know where you are and WHEN to expect voice from you. This is obligatory! To know every step in advance and to have 'road signs' at every step is also very nice, but did we killed exploring spirit with too much of this? Did we forget to be free?
Again, don't get me wrong; my only fear when I was participating 170 kilometers of Tour de Mont Blanc was that I will get lost at some point. Largest wild animal in that part of world is Marmot, but sleeping on open at 2500 meters in September is not very healthy. Explaining to my loved ones why I didn't send report from next point at an agreed day and time is even less advisable. Once our families put half of French mountain rescue service in red alert just because we decided to spend money dedicated for phone call to another round of beer. Having experience of ten big rangers yelling at me, and months and months of grumbling from my father to his foolish 40 years old son was somehow priceless, but never again! ;) So, each of us had Garmin, phone equipped with detailed offline maps, and good old paper map and compass, even though we had to learn again how to use them. And probably my only mild disappointment with Tour de Mont Blanc was that is virtually impossible to get lost. There's more road signs in unexplored areas of Mont Blanc than in some cities in my country. So, at first day, it stopped to be adventure and become test of my physical abilities, which was very good experience, but I expected some drama to :)
Why I am telling you all this when I should write another blog entry about beauty of Old Mountain? Well, because, at some point, to enjoy beauty of this magnificent mountain, you should have some adventurous spirit inside you. You should be ready to wander, get dirty and wet. You must explore in order to properly see that mountain. As I told you in first blog entry: "It's huge, it's vast, it's unexplored, it's wild and, most of all, it's indescribably beautiful!". To see and enjoy spirit of Old Mountain, you must be ready to wander, get lost, to get back few miles and try again... you must be prepared to enjoy exploring the track even though you are not sure where it will lead you.
Places you can see on these photos is simply Old Mountain. Not particular place, even though I can pinpoint exact position of each and every photo. (and I will if you want to find those places, just ask) But for general picture about Old Mountain this is the best way. Simply explore. Our daily routine was same every day; we were spending nights at private houses in local villages, and after amazing breakfast with our smiling hosts, we usually went to visit one of places from our maps. Most of those places we reached with more or less ease up to noon. For rest of the day, we were wandering around, exploring and discovering without any particular goal. I am quite sure that some places I've seen too many times, thank's to fact that we had couple 'try and miss' attempts, but I was completely enjoying in every single second.
At very end, don't take this as call to be reckless. Respect Nature! Nature is here longer than you and she will survive much longer than you. Always keep in mind, that from time to time, her job is to try to hurt you. Nothing personal, just Natural low.
But, do not allow this to stop you from knowing her. Don't be afraid to explore limits of your comfort zone. And then, when you are on very limit, make another step. Just to prove to yourself that you are better person than you think that you are. Sometimes you will have strength for that step, sometimes not. It's not really important, but do make that step from time after time. Small or big one. You will find another beauty and another meaning around you. You will find that that step wasn't so hard at all. You will find that your limits are nothing more than clouds in your head. You will find new yourself and one day you'll remember, with well earned pride, that you lived!
It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.
-- Edmund Hillary
If you missed first part of our little walk across Old Mountain and story about another stunningly beautiful place Canyon of river Rosomac, you can find it here. It is a travel into one of most surprising places on Old Mountain, and a view of another untouched beauty of nature this area has to offer.
You may also click on photo to reach Rosomac Canyon blog entry.
In our second day we visited place from some other planet - Jelovicko Vrelo. It looks more like scene from Elfish Kingdom than something quietly pampered in one, almost urban corner of Old Mountain. To reach beauty of this amazing place click here or at a photo of watery spring.
If you like what you seen so far, stay tuned, our travel across Old Mountain is not over yet ;)
Camera info: Canon PowerShot SX50 HS
Post processing: Adobe Lightroom CC
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!steemitworldmap 43.390283 lat 22.656212 long Exploring Old Mountain! d3scr