like getting away from home and reverting to a simpler, less complicated way of life, where concerns are as basic as averaging a certain number of miles per day, deciding where to spend the night, and finishing the trip before running out of food. Simpler doesn’t mean easier; simpler means hard

The lengthy distance between where you are and where you wish to be—with all of its difficulties—is there for a reason, and the ups and downs feed each other in valuable ways. In Zen, the Buddha says you cannot travel the path until you have become the path yourself. Only by embracing the middle will you find your way through.

However, if the goal is mountain climbing itself, and not just getting to the top, one could say it is energeial. In this case, in the end it doesn’t matter whether one makes it to the mountaintop or not.