Absolutely, and in each stage of ascent and descent we get to model a piece of our soul's journey onto physical terrain, and in taking one step after another through fear, and exhiliration, we get to process in physical form, what our emotions and feeling tones are experiencing. It gives me such rich metaphoric content to hike a mountain; frames of reference. I love the idea of the hero's journey in the form of a mountain, because we undertake that call to action towards something that calls us, that we cannot know what is on the other side, until we stand at the peak and look beyond it into the next valley. Magic.