Voices: Why We Go

We asked five people who trek with us at least twice a year the same question: why do you keep going back up? None of them mentioned the view first.

"It's the only place my head goes quiet," said one, a software engineer from Bengaluru who does the Kedarkantha trail every winter. "Down here I'm never actually finished with anything. Up there, the only task is the next step."

A second regular, a physiotherapist from Pune, comes for the opposite reason — the body. "You find out exactly what you're made of around hour six of day three. It's the most honest feedback I get all year."

The pattern across all five answers wasn't scenery, or fitness, or even adventure. It was the quiet. Every one of them, in their own words, said some version of the same thing: they go up to hear themselves think.