just saw someone say online that they’ve never seen mountains irl and lost my mind. is this an experience you guys have had. are there some people who havent seen mountains
ok i’m not going to make this a whole thing but i am REALLY shaken that i’ve gone through nearly two decades of life just assuming that mountains were a Universal Life Constant. more than anything, i have to blame the media. just how many shows and books have i been subjected to where characters wax poetic over having never seen the ocean or wanting to see the snow? but never in my life have i seen a holiday episode or cutesy fanfic dedicated to a character’s first mountain
My family is from the Louisiana bayous. My brother has spent most of his adult life around San Diego. When I go to visit him and his family, I spend a lot of time marveling at the cliffs and tall hills. My visits have stuck pretty close to the coast, so I don’t think I’ve seen anything that is technically considered a mountain yet. When his family comes visit us, my sister-in-law spends just as much time wondering how land can be so flat.
Seeing actual mountains is very much on my bucket list.
I’ve lived where there are at least tall hills visible everywhere at all times (and big mountains on sunny days) for most of my life, and being a place that’s totally flat can be sort of unnerving; you feel strangely exposed, and you don’t feel like you’re in a specific place. You could be anywhere in all that flatness.
Going through the notes on this post, I’m apparently not the only one.
And it’s not so bad if it’s a slow change–like, riding my bicycle across a good portion of the continent, the flat stuff (and hooboy parts of the Canadian prairies are really, really flat) didn’t bother me much because I’d gone through mountains and then rolling hills and then to totally flat. There was a transition.
But flying–I’m using to being surrounded by hills and even feeling kinda protected and held by them (which is funny when you remember some of them are dead volcanoes) and I go into a metal tube and then come out the other side and they’re gone! I think some older part of my brain finds that confusing as hell!
Anyway. Come visit the Pacific Northwest and see our lovely mountains! Some of which are still active volcanos! But summer is usually better; in the winter sometimes it’s rainy for enough days on end that you don’t see them so much!
Can report in: growing up in areas where you always have the ocean and big mountains has made flat places very alarming. Anywhere where you /can’t/ immediately turn around and find a big goddam mountain on the horizon gives me an illogical sense of claustrophobia, as though without mountains and seas there to weigh down the edges of the map, the whole world map may just roll up and squash me.
Ditto the lost feeling @aprillikesthings mentioned. It feels like you’re playing a video game where the skybox never loads. Hill country like Virginia is actually worse because you keep expecting the hills to lead up to an actual mountain, and when it doesn’t, it’s like living in a partially loaded video game. I’m always vaguely anxious about what else hasn’t loaded (Gravity? Magnetic north? Tides?).
When I travel on vacation I can’t figure out where north is. Growing up north was always where the mountains were so all I had to do was look and I knew immediately. When I was in London and was asked about detections I spun in a cercle while looking to the horizon before remembering that only works in Vancouver.
It’s worse when you live on one coast your whole life, and know the ocean = specific compass direction. Then fly to the other coast and be lost always.
Mountains are very much an exotic wondrous thing to me lmao I could count on one hand the number I’ve visited. Going to Colorado (first time west of the Mississippi) last fall was an astounding experience, both for the omnipresent mountains and for the stretches of utter flatness, which we have neither of here in northern New England. Here, it’s forest. Everywhere. On the side of the highway, you can’t see past the road, because there’s a wall of trees. Is it hilly? Is it flat? You don’t know, because there’s trees covering the land no matter where you look. Don’t get me wrong – I love it! But I do wonder how someone who isn’t used to such a high density of forest and lack of mountains would think of it.
(That being said, from an evolutionary standpoint, humans prefer wide open plains and having a high vantage point on them to see out as far as possible in order to spot predators. Bipedalism evolved so we could walk long distances on flat ground instead of in the trees!)
@eomer what’s your input
I’m someone who’s surrounded by mountain ranges which sport sheer cliffsides and dizzying heights, and has never been to a place where it’s completely flat or has endless trees. (exception, southern Idaho which is somewhat flat but it has mountains you can see at a distance still) Like even the thought of being somewhere like that makes me nervous lmao.
I grew up in a valley, surrounded by forested ridges on all side. I’m used to not being able to see the other side of a 400 person town. Moving somewhere flatter was…an adjustment. It still wigs me out to be able to see so far in any direction.
I can’t imagine life without mountains. When I visited Florida I spent the whole time being unnerved by how flat everything was. It made me feel oddly vulnerable, since I’m so used to being surrounded by tall hills at the very least.
Also I was one of the weird kids that grew up roaming around outside so. The mountains are like a home to me.
I’ve seen mountains before, small ones. But I’m from Singapore, which is mostly flat. Do you have any idea how badly mountains screw up my estimates for distances? I legitimately cannot tell how far any given landmark is from me if I or the landmark are on any part of a mountajn. I can’t tell at all.
It always seems a little unreal tbh. Just – mountains. I’m used to flat land. Who looks at a steep slope and goes “Hmm yes this is a good place to live?” A lot, apparently.
FantasyBoudicca 