WELCOME
UNTIL RECENTLY, I was a bit sniffy about the world’s big ‘bucket list’ treks. They seemed too crowded; too over-exposed; just a bit too mainstream, man. From a distance, the likes of Everest Base Camp, the Inca Trail, the Tour of Mont Blanc and Kilimanjaro appeared to be the hiking equivalents of visiting the Eiffel Tower: undoubtedly spectacular in and of themselves, but somewhat eclipsed by the circus around them.
Some mountains seem to suffer from over-exposure, too. I’ve never felt the need to sit through all 70 hours of Game of Thrones, because everyone used to talk about it so much, I knew all the key plot points anyway. By the same token, Mont Blanc is so ubiquitous in mountain and tourism imagery, it lost some of its mystery and allure for me. Hence why, until recently, I’ve spent much of my time poking around in the world’s less visited mountain regions, convinced they were where the real rewards were to be found.
I still look for things like unfiltered natural connection, a sense of solitude, and the joy of discovering a well-preserved place and culture on its own terms; but over the last year or so I have felt myself becoming more open to the big-hitters. I think it has something to do with a looming sense of mortality. Earlier this year I realised it would be sad to leave this life without ever having set my own eyes on, for example, the glaciers, gendarmes and white domes of the Mont Blanc massif. I have now done this, and it was awesome. Sublime mountain landscapes radiate a power that is resistant to a few humans milling around.
A certain mistrust of popular things is healthy, but only to a point. Like Beyoncé or The Beatles, the world’s bucket
