Same mountain, a different view

Oehhh, that's a bit much water for my barefoot hiking shoes.
I smile. Surely there's a way to cross.
I look up, deciding the track there would take me too far from my route. I look down. Even boggier there.
I inspect the pool. Too muddy here, too deep there... until I spot a couple of stepping stones. Ha! They'll get me across. A minute later I'm on the other side and can't resist taking a photo of the view like a trophy.

The track leads on towards more no-man's-land. Mountains in every direction, and up here it's easy to believe they stretch all the way to the end of the world.

I pause often, looking back and memorising the way I came. I say out loud what I see and even make myself point at everything, just to make sure my brain is paying attention.

I like getting to know the land and knowing where I live. More importantly, I want to be able to get back home the same way I came. If for any reason I find myself stuck, retracing my steps is always a guaranteed option.

That may sound strange when the route seems so obvious. You know you walked this path, crossed that stream, saw that treeline on the horizon and followed the curve of those hills.

Then you turn around.
Suddenly, the view is completely different.

It's surprisingly easy to mistake where you came from and start walking in another direction. The constant rising and falling of the land means that even a ten-metre drop can completely change what you see. Even barren land doesn't look the same for more than a moment.

Clouds can play tricks on you too. The same mountain can look completely different when the light falls across another part of it, to the point where you start wondering whether you're even looking at the same mountain.

It's hard to believe. Barren land probably sounds like the easiest landscape to cross, yet I've found it the most confusing.

From wherever you are, I hope you enjoy these views as much as I did out here — with the considerable advantage that you don't have to walk for hours across the mountains to see them.