help me understand whats so great about the mountains (Denver: school, live)

[treedonkey]

Originally Posted by lalahartma

You forgot horseback riding.

And donkeyback riding. In the treetops.

[Screw Sacramento]

Originally Posted by Idunn

I forget who it was, but when asked why he climbed mountains the classic reply was: 'Because they are there.' You may get no better answer than that.

I would be curious where you hiked and to what extent venturing into true wilderness. In such places the spirit of nature can be distinctly felt. As if in another realm, and one's relation to this world takes on a new and different meaning. The same is true in any wild place, whether on or near the ocean or elsewhere. Even within a concrete urban jungle, but more difficult and one must be discerning. But if you've ever noticed, it is within mountains that people become lost, or lose themselves, or indeed found.

For some the first hint of the Rocky Mountains on the horizon in coming across the plains quickens the blood. You may not be one of them, and your question valid if having journeyed well within them, looking up and still feeling nothing. They may not be for you, as many another by then would only wish to further explore this new love.

But before you decide you might travel to some secluded, quiet and beautiful place, and listen. You might at last hear another aspect of yourself.

That's poetic, I like that. All of it.

[Wurzig]

The air! It's clean!
Pine trees! They smell so good!
The quiet! It gives one time to think!
The wind coming through the boughs! Mother nature talks to you!
The pine cones! Food for some, Christmas decorations for others.....
Clean streams and beautiful lakes! Full of fish, full of serenity, full of melted snow!
Animals that you don't see at the beach! Great photographic opportunities!
Plenty of ground to explore! Exercise without a crowd invading your space!

There is nothing more exhilirating than to place the first footprint in newfallen snow...or to ski down a mountain and let the wind hit your cheeks and make 'em all pink.....the air is crisp...the snow is clean....fresh.....sparkly in the sun....pristine......and water if you are thirsty!

[treedonkey]

One final paragraph of advice:

Do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am -- a reluctant enthusiast... a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it's still there. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizz, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much: I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound people with their hearts in a safe deposit box and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: you will outlive the bastards.

-- Edward Abbey
(1927-1989)

[amerifree]

I grew up in Wisconsin and lived by the ocean for 5 years after college. Then Imoved to Jackson Hole and have lived in the mountains ever since. You and your girlfriend sound like the opposite of me and my wife....though I do miss all those bikinis!

[lalahartma]

I find the shore uncomfortable, and kinda stinky. I've tried it repeatedly.

The mountains fill me with awe and wonder and sometimes terror! I get kinda freaked out @ Crested Butte with all those massive forms looming.

[Katarina Witt]

If you have to ask the question in the OP, I guess the mountains are just not for you!

[salliej]

Originally Posted by thinkin about it

I just completed a short trip to the mountains mid-state. It was pretty breathtaking visually on the whole, I admit that. But after like 15 minutes, my girlfriend and I were thinking "now what?" What are we missing in our personalities or perspectives that doesn't allow for us to appreciate the mountains in the way many of you do? I hope you can take me at my word in my sincerity here; I'm not bad-mouthing the mountains or Colorado. I just don't get it, and would like to.

For example, the ocean is also stunningly beautiful, but it allows for activities beyond looking at it. Fishing, boating, water skiing, hitting the pier, surfing, etc. Mountains, from what I can tell, you just kinda look at-then, well, I dunno? I guess you can walk through them and take pictures?

What am I missing? What do the mountains do for you? Thanks for sharing.

I think that you either have a love for the mountains or you don't. Some people are ocean people, some are mountain people. I honestly think it's the energy of how each reacts with our own own personal energy.

I have always known I was a mountain person, even tho I grew up in The Great Lakes area. When I was 24, I moved to Colorado to be near the energy of the mountains. It was just as simple as that. I guess you could say I had a calling.

[Amy WJ]

I don't think it's either/or (mountains/ocean). Colorado has the highest number of scuba divers per capita despite being landlocked. Scuba divers have a love for the ocean (or they wouldn't be out there exploring it all over the world). I agree it's certainly a calling.....but not the kind of calling you may think. It's a calling for peace, beauty, nature, silence.

[20yrsinBranson]

Originally Posted by thinkin about it

I just completed a short trip to the mountains mid-state. It was pretty breathtaking visually on the whole, I admit that. But after like 15 minutes, my girlfriend and I were thinking "now what?" What are we missing in our personalities or perspectives that doesn't allow for us to appreciate the mountains in the way many of you do? I hope you can take me at my word in my sincerity here; I'm not bad-mouthing the mountains or Colorado. I just don't get it, and would like to.

For example, the ocean is also stunningly beautiful, but it allows for activities beyond looking at it. Fishing, boating, water skiing, hitting the pier, surfing, etc. Mountains, from what I can tell, you just kinda look at-then, well, I dunno? I guess you can walk through them and take pictures?

What am I missing? What do the mountains do for you? Thanks for sharing.

HA! You see! This is proof that other people feel the same way that I do about the mountains - BORING BORING BORING. Big slabs of granite, sitting there. Never changing. BFD.

Thank you so much, thinkin about it, for validating something I had known all along. Mountains are overrated! HA HA HA HA HA HA

Vindicated at long last.

By the way I love the ocean too!

20yrsinBranson