Healing in Hiking

A Kashmiri health worker recounts how the mountains reshaped his understanding of healing.

- Abid Mohi-ud-Din

For most of my adult life, I've worked as a health professional. I've seen people walk into clinics with their shoulders sagging under weight that doesn't show up on scans.

It’s stress, anxiety, and addiction caused by work, family, and often by a strange emptiness that settles in people who no longer feel connected to anything outside their screens.

To break this lifestyle jinx, seven years ago, I began walking into the mountains of Kashmir. At first, it was an escape. Now, it’s something closer to devotion.

I've trekked to over 50 alpine lakes since 2018. Each one sits more than 3,000 meters above sea level, deep inside the folds of the Himalayas.

Some took ten hours to reach, others required days. Along the way, I crossed snow bridges that collapsed beneath my boots, tiptoed across ridgelines whipped by wind, and slept under stars so sharp they felt near enough to touch.

I used to think this type of journey was about endurance. But over time, it became an act of listening, paying attention, and healing.

This kind of healing is rare in Kashmir carrying its own burdens of strife, memory, and longing. But I found it in the high altitudes.

Most people know the postcard Kashmir: shikaras on Dal Lake, apple orchards in bloom, a line of poplars brushing the sky. Fewer know that this valley is home to more than 200 alpine lakes, many of them unnamed and unreachable except on foot.