Our relentless pursuit to master the world provides us with much. Modern science explains to us everything from from this week's weather, to eating a heart-healthy diet, to the origin of the formation of the cosmos. Yet our world mastery also demystifies what was once wild, exciting, and unknown about our planet.
In the Meili Xue Shan mountain range at the Southeastern edge of the Tibetan plateau, even villages to which no roads lead have now begun to be reached by the long arm of China's tourist industry. When I traveled to this region, I befriended travellers and made the arduous hike up 1000m and down again to the distant village of Yubeng. Sharing our path was a steady stream of Han Chinese tourists riding pack animals, all while inhaling excessively from compressed oxygen canisters. Along with them, Tibetan-run facilities for food and drink had sprung up along the trail.
Yet while the overall traffic on this journey was small, it was enough for one local Tibetan to remark on the state of affairs. He said that the sacred peaks of the Kawo Karpo -- ever-shrouded within the clouds -- choose not to reveal themselves to us because there are too many tourists about. The man bestowed god-like attributes upon those mountains, and I thought it was an amazing way to think about the world. Yet this statement caused an outburst of laughter from Chinese passerby, and perhaps predictably so. In our modernity we believe not in spirits, but in science, and science tells us that the weather and the mountain are two seperate agents...yet where is the excitement in that? I wanted to believe there was some truth in what the old Tibetan said.
In the following days we continued our hiking along cliffside trails that were in dangerous decay, making our way to the glacial lake at 4100m. Perhaps afterall we did earn the respect of the mountains, since the snow-capped peaks of the Kawo Karpo eventually decided to show themselves to us. It's a prospect I cling to in our demystified world.
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