The Long-Unseen Mountain: Reflections on Rhythm and Rapport When Hiking with a First-Time Companion

A few days ago, I found a friend I’d known for many years, and we went to climb a long-unseen mountain.

The words “long-unseen” actually carry a double meaning here: one is that the few trails I chose were old places extremely familiar in my memory; the other is that I myself had indeed gone a very long time without getting so seriously close to the mountains and forests.

Standing at the windward spot on the ridge, the distant mountain ranges still loomed in and out of the clouds and mist, and the grass and trees on the cliffs still flourished and withered with the turning of the four seasons. The mountain has actually always been there, never changing—it’s just that the human world has gone through great upheavals, and the people and affairs are no longer the same.

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My Friend and My Tongue-Twisting Wilderness Stubbornness

First, let me introduce this companion. I’ve been well acquainted with him for several years; usually, when we dine together on the flatlands, drink coffee, and chat about our respective work and lives, we always get along famously. But he himself maintains a long-term exercise habit, and in high school he also participated in high-intensity activity clubs, so in terms of physical foundation and outdoor common sense, he’s theoretically quite well equipped.

However, even though we’re so familiar with each other, this was, since we first met, the first time we truly “entered the mountains together.”

I have a personal habit on the mountain that I’ve cultivated over many years, and it may sound a bit tongue-twisting: I’m not used to hiking with people I haven’t hiked with before.

At first hearing, this sentence seems like some kind of logical deadlock—if you’ve never hiked together, how can you have a companion you’ve “hiked together with”?

Though I call it a habit, it’s not some unshakable absolute commandment; if I had to say, it’s at most just a bit of obsession and stubbornness in my bones about the wilderness. And precisely because of this, over my long past career of mountain journeys, I’ve still had experiences of teaming up mid-route with newly met fellow hikers to summit together, or being invited to hike on a whim with flatland friends.

But every time I walk the same trail with someone I haven’t hiked with before, no matter how close we are on the flatlands, there always emerges in the air, more or less, an indescribable “sense of mismatch.”

This mismatch isn’t about who’s dragging whom down, nor about who’s at a physical disadvantage—it’s that each person, when facing slopes, gravity, surging heart rates, and the perils of the trail, naturally flows out a completely different rhythm from within. In flatland socializing, words and politeness are enough to mask all the tiny differences in pace; but on a trail that climbs several hundred meters steeply, where breathing gradually grows heavy, all the most primal physiological habits and psychological defenses are magnified infinitely.

If next time you also have the chance to step forward together with a first-time companion, or even a partner you chance upon in the mountains, the following three dimensions—the ones most prone to friction and tug-of-war in the wilderness—may serve as a reference for your mutual rapport before setting out:

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One: Starting Off—Press the Pace Down to an Almost Strolling Low Speed

The first trap most likely to trigger a breakdown when hiking together for the first time often appears in the first fifteen minutes right after stepping off at the trailhead.

Many friends who usually have running or fitness habits, upon first stepping into the mountains, are usually full of energy and high spirits. Seeing the stone steps or gentle slopes extending upward before them, they subconsciously charge upward at a flatland pace frequency. Yet hiking is never a sprint—it’s an energy management effort lasting several hours, or even a whole day.

The veteran hiker’s rule for starting off is “start slow—so slow you even feel you’re walking too idly.”

The human body’s muscles, cardiopulmonary function, and joints need at least twenty minutes to half an hour of warm-up transition when going from the flatlands into a loaded hiking state. If you rush recklessly right after starting from the trailhead, your heart rate instantly spikes past the anaerobic threshold, lactic acid accumulates massively within minutes, and the entire rest of the route will fall into a painful state of blowing up.

When stepping out the first step with a first-time companion, by all means avoid secretly competing over speed. The best rapport between the two is to proactively press the starting speed low, advancing at a pace where “breathing is completely steady, and you can even easily articulate words and joke.” First let your feet adapt to the hardness of soil and stones, let your chest slowly open up—this is the first key to walking far.