Going off trail
The most exciting excursions are those that lead off the beaten track. When you walk on an unmarked terrain, step on a slightly unknown ground, you rely on yourself. You rely on your orientation and navigation skills.
Of course, dropping you off in some area you’ve never been to, I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about getting off the path you’ve walked many times, and entering the terrain you’ve seen many times – the space between familiar points you haven’t stepped into.
Yet.
Not every terrain is suitable for that. Sometimes you have to stick to the trail because everything off the trail is bumpy, uneven, overgrown, wild and too dangerous.
However, where possible, in places where the terrain off the trail does not differ much from the trail itself except in that the trail is beaten and the path can be seen, well, that is already a tempting horizon.
It occurred to me that free climbers create their routes in the rock and move vertically towards the peaks looking for cracks in the rock. That’s how they find the way they go. The same is true of horizontal movement.
You are looking for the most adequate passage and while walking you use a lot more brain and abilities than when you walk a well-known path. When you’re on a track you’ve walked multiple times, you’re driving on autopilot.
When you explore the terrain to progress, you use your head. You use your psychophysical resources. It’s a very fun and exciting process.
Mount Ucka has many such opportunities, it is a paradise for practicing orientation, for exploring mysterious horizons and mystical forests.
