Secret pleasures of backpacking

These are things I really really like about backpacking that don't usually get mentioned:

• I love washing my feet in ice cold snow melt streams. I like the pain and the pleasure of it.
• I love feeling cold air on my face in the morning. I love it when my cheeks are cold.
• I love to start climbing again. Going downhill feels like I'm not going anywhere. Going uphill feels like forward progress. I like settling in for a long climb, putting it in low gear and forgetting all about it. It's meditative.
• I love going to bed in pain and waking up good as new.
• I love being toasty warm under my quilt. What I mean is, there's a certain measure of warmth where I just feel this huge pleasure come over me.
• I love to walk along knife-edge ridges, especially with a strong wind so you have to brace yourself with your trekking poles. The Goat Rocks in Washington was a supreme experience of this.