One obvious reason people trek is to see astonishingly beautiful scenery and unusual wildlife. But a major reason we trek is to reinvent ourselves, to shed some fear or another that has burdened us. I have met trekkers who are afraid of horses, precipices, swaying rope bridges, zippered tents or catching a horrible disease. Sleeping-bag manufacturers, take note: my informal research shows that many travelers harbor a secret fear of mummy-style bags. Fortunately, I don’t have this particular fear. I have enough others.
Years ago I moved to Arizona from Australia. As a single parent, with no relatives to rely on, I lived in torment that if something happened to me, my kids would be orphaned. My neurosis escalated to the point that I was uncomfortable leaving the house. I’d panic when driving, standing in line at the bank or buying groceries. I envied friends who took trips to Tahiti and Rome. Was I destined to be just an armchair traveler reading National Geographic?
Partly to reclaim my independence, and partly to give my preteen children a better role model, I began timidly venturing out with friends. Eventually I was able to travel by myself, and took my first solitary airplane trip from Tucson, Ariz., to San Francisco. A friend made me a reassuring tape of encouragement (“Breathe slowly and deeply. Your heart is beating slower. You’re totally relaxed.”) to play on my headset. I discovered that my imagination was responsible for many of my anxieties.
After I moved to Hawaii, and with my children now teenagers, I ran in the Honolulu Marathon, to teach myself about setting and achieving a physical goal. Next, I took trips to the Neighbor Islands, where I rented a car and explored the islands by myself. Over the years I learned some important lessons: to trust myself, to ask for help, to avoid toxic people who ridicule anxiety.
To celebrate my 50th birthday in 1994, I took my first trip overseas without friends or family. I selected Bhutan because so little had been written about it, and I had no preconceived ideas about it. With 11 others I trekked about 400 miles, into Laya, the remote heart of the Himalaya. The lessons I had learned paid off. I recited my mantra, “Slow and steady. Switch off the imagination.” I was exhilarated by the vistas of the eternal snows, and by the chance to meet nomadic herdsmen and visit Buddhist monasteries. Yes, sometimes I was afraid. But I never once felt as though I could not manage.
Since then, I’ve traveled alone to Australia, India and Nepal–all former impossible dreams. I haven’t overcome my fears so much as learned to cope with them. I understand that my fear of heights is apparently innate; researchers think it’s a phobia that’s wired into our brains from our ancestral days in the treetops. Knowing my limitations–I doubt I’ll ever try parachuting–has helped me to establish attainable goals. Not that it’s easy. I once had to hold a fellow trekker’s hand and be helped across nightmarish slopes that disappeared into bottomless gorges. We inched our way along a trail that had been hand-carved hundreds of years ago out of a sheer vertical cliff face in India’s Great Zaskar Range. My heart was beating so loudly that even the sound of boulders and ice chunks crashing into the river thousands of feet below couldn’t drown it out. But I made it. Fear is two-way. I’ve been empowered by helping fellow adventurers with fears. One trekker lay curled in a fetal position, watching in terror as I removed a spider the size of a soup bowl from her tent.
As I browse through the glossy adventure-company brochures, I fantasize about the trips I intend to take. Maybe we’ll meet on Kilimanjaro, Kailas or Machu Picchu. You’ll know me–I’m the one whose ritual on reaching a mountaintop is to high-five my fellow trekkers, and then remind the surrounding mountains at the top of my voice, “Only cowards can be truly brave.”
